Counselling

Please attend your appointment on time. If you arrive more than 15 minutes late for an in-person appointment, the session will not be able to take place.

For an online or telephone appointment, we will contact you at the agreed time and, if you do not answer, we will make one further attempt five minutes later. If you do not answer our second attempt, the session will not be able to take place.

If you need to cancel or rearrange an appointment, please email sws.therapyappointments@newcastle.ac.uk. We ask that you give us at least 24 hours' notice wherever possible.

We will only use your university email address (rather than a personal email address), so please check your inbox and junk folder regularly. We may also contact you by telephone, so if you have provided a phone number, please check your voicemail regularly. 

It is important that you participate in sessions from a private, quiet and well-lit area of your home. There must not be others present in the room with you during the call.

Public spaces are not appropriate due to the inability to control who is present.

When at all possible, use headphones to minimise the ability for anyone to overhear the complete content of your session.

While your comfort during the session is important, please dress appropriately. We also ask that you check what is visible in the background of your screen. Any inappropriate or illegal items should not be visible during your session. 

Please refrain from eating during a session, as this can be distracting. You are welcome to drink non-alcoholic beverages. Smoking, vaping or engaging in other behaviours that you would not ordinarily bring to an in-person appointment are not appropriate.

Understanding information sharing and confidentiality is an essential part of the support process.

What we discuss during your appointments is kept confidential within the Student Health and Wellbeing Service and will only be shared with professionals involved in your care, and where appropriate.

If we become significantly concerned about your wellbeing or safety, we may need to involve a third party, such as your GP, a crisis team or your named trusted contact. The purpose of this is to provide support outside of the University.

Normally, we will only contact your trusted contact in collaboration with you and with your consent. However, there may be occasions where we need to contact your nominated person without your consent if we are unable to work with you to do so and believe that you or someone else is at risk of harm.

We keep brief records of your contact with the service. Your notes are stored securely on an electronic database and are only accessible to authorised members of the Student Health and Wellbeing Service.

We are committed to providing the best possible service. At the start and end of your counselling, we will ask you to complete a small number of evaluation questions. This helps us understand how effectively we are supporting students and enables us to make improvements to the service.

Our appointments are intended to provide therapeutic support and should not be booked solely for Personal Extenuating Circumstances (PEC) evidence.

We are only able to provide PEC evidence for students who are currently accessing the service or who have previously accessed the service. For more information about the PEC process, please visit the Student Progress webpage, Circumstances Affecting Your Studies.