Student wellbeing and support

The Student Inclusion Team provides a service that offers a range of information and advice, including help to apply for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs), offering diagnostic assessments for Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs) and putting a Learning Support Statement (LSS) into place.

For more information on how we can support you if you have a disability or additional need, then please visit our section on Disability Support.  Our Student Inclusion Advisors will be able to talk through support available based on your personal circumstances and needs and may include putting into place reasonable adjustments.

A Learning Support Statement (LSS) is a document that details reasonable adjustments due to a disability, a learning need, mental health condition, visual or hearing impairment or other barriers that affect your studies.
Examples of reasonable adjustments:

• An agreed amount of extra time in examinations
• Provision of separate or private rooms for examinations – students will either be in a room with students with similar adjustments or in a room on their own.
• Reader in examinations. This will need to be arranged well in advance.
• Use of PC (Examinations) with work being saved onto a USB device.
• Agreed alternative assessments.

 These are examples – the adjustments included on your LSS will depend on your individual needs.

Once an LSS has been developed with you, you will need to ensure that you have agreed to the content of this through your student e-vision portal. Only when you have done this will it be shared with academic staff. For more information, please contact the Student Inclusion Team by emailing student-inclusion@staffs.ac.uk so that we can offer guidance based on your individual needs

Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA)

DSA helps to pay for the extra costs you might have in order to attend a designated higher education course because of a disability or Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD). 

Eligibility for the DSAs will be dependent on number of factors. The government website provides detailed information about this and how to apply. 

The Student Inclusion administration team is available via Live Chat from Monday to Friday from 2pm to 4pm.  This can be accessed by clicking the chat function on this page. Alternatively please email our team on student-inclusion@staffs.ac.uk  We will endeavour to respond within 5 working days. 

If an appointment is needed these will generally be via Telephone or Microsoft Teams unless you are asked to come to campus.  For both scheduled appointments and drop-in sessions, please view our Student Inclusion bookings page. 

Our team of practitioners are here to support any student experiencing mental wellbeing difficulties.  All students who feel they may benefit from our service can use it. If you are experiencing feelings of being overwhelmed, problems are piling up or you have a personal difficulty that you are struggling to cope with, the wellbeing service can help support you.

We can offer:

• General advice and information about mental wellbeing and what help is available
• Talk through difficulties to see what might help
• Provide information about your rights under Equality Legislation and access to funding if you are one of our disabled students. 
• Liaise with Departments and/or Halls on your behalf to have mental health issues taken into consideration and prevent build-up of problems
• Signpost to appropriate services and resources, including other university support services
• Help you to access services by providing information, advocacy and support
• Assist you to liaise with specialist agencies
• Support you during and after hospital admission/ break from studies
• Provide opportunities to meet in facilitated groups to build confidence/ meet others with similar experiences.
• Provide tips on self-care, online resources and lifestyle advice

Our practitioners are usually able to provide a supporting statement for Exceptional Circumstances if you have been or are coming for appointments during the period that you feel your studies have been affected. But we cannot usually provide a statement if this is not the case, and suggest you contact the Student Experience Team for advice on who might be able to provide a supporting statement for your claim, if this is needed.

If you would like to access our service here at the University, you can simply fill out our online appointments form in order to arrange an appointment with our Student Wellbeing team.