Faculty Student Wellbeing Adviser

Job id: 086329. Salary: £43,205 – £50,585 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 14 March 2024. Closing date: 04 April 2024.

Business unit: Students & Education. Department: Advice, Wellbeing & Welfare.

Contact details:Mary Flaherty. [email protected]

Location: Strand Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.

Job Description

About Us

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

The Student Wellbeing and Welfare Team has recently created as a cross-institutional, faculty-based support function, organised on a ‘hub and spoke’ basis, with faculty based staff who are supported and coordinated by specialist teams in Student Support & Wellbeing Services.

This sort of hub/spoke arrangement enables a model of supportive engagement, enhanced by faculty nuance, and providing a parity of offer for students notwithstanding the faculty they are in.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

About the Role

The Faculty Wellbeing and Welfare Advisors provide an accessible point of contact to all students, based in a particular faculty, offering professional and pastoral help and guidance if they are experiencing challenges or need support.  This will include regular office hours & drop-ins, and complements the work of Personal Tutors and Senior Tutors.

The post holder will be active in ensuring students are appropriately signposted to specialist services in a timely manner, and will be a key conduit between central and faculty-based services supporting students.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to support our King’s students, embed wellbeing practices throughout the student journey and to develop a culture of wellbeing through King’s, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in pastoral, supportive and wellbeing practices. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in the broad range of specialisms and areas that impact students’ wellbeing.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

This is a full-time post, but we welcome applications from candidates seeking a flexible work pattern within our necessary service operating hours i.e. 10am to 4pm as core hours and flexibility around those.

This is currently a hybrid working role with both work from home and on campus. The role will be based in our department, from any of the following campuses Strand, Waterloo, Guys or Denmark Hill.

Key responsibilities

• Providing a flexible service offering support to students and staff at a faculty level, complementing existing support mechanisms such as Personal Tutors and Student Experience Managers.
• Triaging on a variety of presenting issues, including wellbeing & welfare concerns, mental health support, fitness to study and fitness to practice as appropriate, student of concern, safeguarding, harassment and bullying, and sexual assault, referring to specialist services when required.
• Collaborating with faculty staff in supporting a variety of student situations including students who are disengaged, planning, and returning from interruption; experiencing bullying or harassment; and supporting students when there are safeguarding concerns, as the faculty deputy safeguarding officer. Key faculty partners include Personal Tutors, Senior Tutors, and Student Experience Managers/Faculty Safeguarding Officers
• Managing a caseload of students experiencing barriers to their full engagement with their university experience, including supporting inter disciplinary interventions for students and creating Support Plans for students to work through
• Keeping accurate confidential records to facilitate appropriate cross team information sharing and support collaborative interventions and provide regular reports as requested.
• Co-delivering training with specialist services, to facilitate proactive student wide engagement at key points of academic year, for example transition/settling in/exam anxiety/endings and next steps.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.  

Skills, knowledge, and experience 

Essential criteria  

Relevant work experience and/or education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in Student Support, Disability, Counselling. Mental Health, or care work Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications or other training

Educated to degree level in related disciplines and/or have professional qualifications or significant relevant work experience relating to the fields of student support, social work, youth work or similar.

Demonstrable competence in working with individuals facing a variety of adverse situations, being an ally in navigating these and appropriately refer on as circumstances dictate.

Demonstrable experience of working effectively and collaboratively as part of a team to enhance the overall quality of the service user.

Evidence of emotional resilience and ability to work calmly under pressure, containing anxiety in self and others and exhibiting strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Experience of managing work confidentially, effectively and sensitively and ability to maintain professional boundaries.

Ability to take responsibility and decisions independently and to consult with and refer matters to colleagues when appropriate, with a flexible and adaptable approach to prioritising work.

Ability to keep accurate records and contribute to management reports, employing appropriate IT skills.

Demonstrable understanding of the current national situation in relation to concerns around student welfare and wellbeing.

Demonstrable knowledge of the requirements around Safeguarding and GDPR responsibilities

Desirable criteria

Current accreditation/registration with a relevant and appropriate professional body

Experience of working in a HE institution.

Experience of completing risk assessments