Student Wellbeing Adviser in Sheffield

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world-class university. We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement, a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.

Join our team as a Wellbeing Adviser to positively impact students' lives through promoting healthy university engagement. Working within Faculties and reporting into a central team you will provide a key link between faculties and central Student Health, Wellbeing and Support Service.

As a Wellbeing Adviser, you will:

• Proactively identify students or groups of students who may be struggling with university life and studies.
• Offer timely support to ensure students with wellbeing needs gain access to the most appropriate support pathways.
• Refer students to wider student support services where appropriate, enabling students to achieve their academic potential.
• Provide one to one student appointments assessing and supporting wellbeing.
• Plan and deliver wellbeing groups, initiatives and activities.
• Offer input to staff on wellbeing matters and contribute to embedding wellbeing into teaching.
• Support mental health promotion activities to proactively support student wellbeing.

To be successful in this role, you will have relevant and significant experience in wellbeing or mental health work. With excellent interpersonal skills, empathy and pragmatism you will maintain boundaries and act with discretion and diplomacy. A good knowledge of student welfare and wellbeing issues and how these may affect students is key. You will have experience in dealing with risk and understanding when to raise risk concerns and the ability to work collaboratively and cooperatively with colleagues across faculties and central teams.

Main duties and responsibilities include:

• Provide support for student wellbeing, promoting healthy and positive engagement with university life and supporting student retention and attainment.
• Offering initial appointments and signposting with follow up appointments as needed.
• Use a range of techniques to support students with wellbeing needs to self-manage and encourage positive lifestyle change.
• Plan, develop and deliver psychoeducational groups and wellbeing programmes for students, designed to promote positive mental health and wellbeing.
• Design and deliver wellbeing initiatives and activities and support mental health promotion events to proactively support student wellbeing.
• Work in collaboration with the mental health and counselling team to triage new referrals.
• Keep records of all activity in line with service protocols using agreed electronic systems and any paper-based systems as appropriate.
• Ensure that student confidentiality is protected at all times, in line with the university policies.
• Deliver relevant training or information sessions to staff or student audiences, covering wellbeing advice and self-care skills.
• Build strong working relationships with colleagues in academic departments/faculties.

Our diverse community of staff and students recognises the unique abilities, backgrounds, and beliefs of all. We foster a culture where everyone feels they belong and is respected. Even if your past experience doesn't match perfectly with this role's criteria, your contribution is valuable, and we encourage you to apply.

Criteria assessed at:

• Relevant experience in mental health or wellbeing work.
• Good knowledge of student wellbeing issues and how these may affect students.
• Experience of planning/facilitating groups.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to demonstrate empathy and pragmatism while maintaining boundaries and confidentiality.
• Experience of working with risk and knowing when to elevate risk.
• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal, including report writing skills.
• Excellent team working skills with the ability to build effective working relationships.
• Knowledge of Data Protection and an ability to deal with confidential issues in a sensitive manner.
• Excellent note keeping and IT skills, including Microsoft Office packages and Google applications.
• Confident at presenting to different audiences and delivering training or presentations.
• Self-motivated, with ability to work on own initiative, manage own workload effectively.
• Experience of planning/facilitating groups e.g. self-help groups/managing stress.
• Experience of working with a student population and knowledge of external and University support services available to students.

We are a Disability Confident Leader. If you have a disability and meet the essential criteria for this job you will be invited to take part in the next stage of the selection process.

An enhanced with barred lists DBS check will be needed for this role. Possession of a criminal record is not an automatic bar to employment at the University of Sheffield.