During these challenging times it is important to be there for our students and remember the wider support networks across the University that can help you support your students. The following provides guidance for Personal Tutors around referring students to wider University support and also guidance for those Tutors who have more immediate concerns around the mental health and wellbeing of their students.
Our Personal Tutors adopt a proactive approach in terms of both reaching out to, and supporting, their students. It is important to continue with this approach and expect that different concerns and issues may be raised to what you might normally be presented with. It is also important to appreciate that for students, engaging with their tutors may not be high on their list of priorities. Continue reaching out and supporting students and be mindful that students may appreciate more asynchronous communications as opposed to synchronous ones. However, there may be times when you think it appropriate to try and contact the student synchronously by phone to ensure that they are OK. Before you do that, you may want to check whether students are engaging in other ways:
• Use of Blackboard
• Access to Library Resources
• Engagement with other Course Team Members.
If you remain concerned, then please contact the mental health team in Student and Library Services – see details below.
Referring students to wider University support
As a Personal Tutor there will be times when we need to signpost and/or refer our tutees to other support available across the University. You will find useful a document entitled ‘Referrals in StREAM’ – this can be accessed here: https://unity3.tees.ac.uk/departments/058/PublishingImages/SitePages/Learner%20Analytics/Referrals%20in%20StREAM%20(Updated%20January%202020).pdf.
It provides a table detailing referral titles, related email addresses, criteria for referral along with some operational details. As you can see you are able to refer students to: Student Futures, Library Help, Learning Hub, Disability Services, Health and Wellbeing, Finance and Welfare, and English Language Support for Academic Studies.
Many students and colleagues across the University are using StREAM, the University’s learner analytics platform. A key feature of StREAM is that you can create an interaction and include actions for your students to undertake and/or refer your students directly to the student services noted above. Further information on the use of StREAM can be found here: https://blogs.tees.ac.uk/lteonline/digital-delivery-learning-and-support/delivering-personal-tutoring-remotely/using-stream/
Where StREAM is not being used (predominantly TU Online Courses and some Courses in the School of Health and Life Sciences) you can still refer your students using existing practices and using the ‘Referrals in StREAM’ document as a point of reference.
There are a number of resources that have been developed to support the health and wellbeing of students during the current pandemic, which can be found at:
https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/coronaviruslibraryupdate
Guidance where there are more immediate concerns around students
You may have more immediate concerns around the mental health and welfare of your students and the above referrals may not seem appropriate. Student and Library Services are responding to referrals of students with mental health issues through remote appointments.
If you would like to refer to the mental health team, please send information to SLSresponse@tees.ac.uk including student name, student number, contact information and an explanation for the referral. If you feel there is an immediate risk, please contact the on-call member of staff to alert them to the referral (either via email or Teams).
On-call rota
Day Member of staff Email address:
| Monday | Helen Myrie | h.myrie@tees.ac.uk |
| Tuesday | Demi Falshaw | d.falshaw@tees.ac.uk |
| Wednesday | Lizzi Brown | Elizabeth.brown@tees.ac.uk |
| Thursday | Lindsay While | l.while@tees.ac.uk |
| Friday | Molly Armstrong | m.armstrong@tees.ac.uk |
In the event of the on-call member of staff being off and you receive their ‘out of office’, please email/call another member of the team who will ensure the information is passed to the person covering.
Recording of Interactions
Please remember to record all interactions (summary of interactions) that you have with your students. For many of you this will be done through StREAM.