FAQs

Once we have received and assessed your online forms, we may offer you a telephone consultation appointment. The call should last no longer than 20 minutes. The purpose of the call is to explore your concerns and to discuss the various support options available to you.

We ask you to prioritise this telephone call over other commitments. Our telephone slots are in high demand and re-arranging will cause delays to you getting support.

We will call you on the telephone number that you gave on your registration form.

We require you to be in a private and confidential space to ensure you are able to speak openly and honestly when a therapist calls. Please note, if you are driving at the time of our call we will not be able to continue the conversation and you will need to reschedule your appointment.

If you miss your telephone or face to face consultation, you should contact us within 48 hours if you wish to re-arrange.

Unless we hear from you within 48 hours of your appointment time, we may assume that you no longer need support and close your file.

If you contact us within 48 hours to rearrange the appointment we will ask you to confirm your availability for the next appointment. If you do not confirm your availability within 48 hours, we may close your file. You can of course ask us to re-open your file at any point in the future if you think we can be of further assistance. When your file is re-opened after closure your request will be treated as a new referral.

As our appointments are usually booked two weeks in advance, it is important to provide us with a range of possible dates and times for several weeks.

Once you have confirmed your availability, we arrange one further appointment in accordance with your stated availability. Due to the high demand for appointments and initial face to face appointments, we will usually be unable to rearrange this second appointment and may signpost you to external services to better suit your needs.

If you are offered a face-to-face counselling session, the initial appointment will be a continuation of the discussion you had at your consultation. The face-to-face counsellor will check how you have been since the telephone consultation and revisit your goals for counselling. Your counsellor may ask some questions, encourage you to say more, or make some comments, so that you can both understand the situation better. If you want to, you can ask questions about the Counselling Service and the counselling process.

Your counsellor knows how difficult it can be to ask for help and talk about your problems, although they tend to focus more on your desired outcome and what you are doing in life that is already working for you. They won't mind if you find it hard to express your feelings, or if you cry or get angry. You are in control of the pace at which things happen.

At the start of the session, you may be asked to fill out another set of clinical assessments (GAD-7, PHQ-9 & CORE-10). These clinical assessments help the counsellor to understand how you feel, think and cope and if anything has changed since you first contacted the Service or participated in a consultation. We also ask you to complete these measures when you finish your counselling (whether one or more sessions), and that helps us evaluate the impact of the service.

The initial Face-to-Face appointment (and any subsequent appointments) will last for 50 minutes from your appointment time. Your counsellor must finish on time. They will still see you if you arrive a little late. However, that does reduce what can be achieved in your appointment, so please make every effort to be ready and waiting when your appointment begins.

Our counselling service is a valuable resource, therefore, we need to operate a strict cancellation policy. This is to ensure that our resources are made available to the greatest number of students who may be able to benefit.

• If you have to cancel your appointment, please provide us with as much notice as possible so that we can make the appointment available to another student.
• If you cancel your appointment with less than 24 hours notice, the session will be counted as one of your allocated sessions.
• If you fail to arrive for an appointment and do not contact us within 48 hours, we will assume that you do not require another appointment and will automatically close your file.
• If you cancel more than two appointments with less than 24 hours notice, this may invalidate your counselling contract and we may close your file. Prior to closing your file, you may be offered an opportunity to discuss any difficulties you are having attending consistently with your counsellor.
• If a decision is made to close your file, you can still use the service in the future if you feel it would be of benefit. If you need further support within the same academic year, just email reception on wellbeing-recpt@brookes.ac.uk to make the request. If you need further support in a different academic year, you will need to register with the service again.

It is a good idea to arrive a few minutes early, to make sure your appointment can start on time. See contact us for information on how to find us.

The consultation appointment is a two-way process. The counsellor will get to know you, and your concerns and hopes about counselling. You can find out what counselling has to offer. You can ask questions, if you want to, about the Counselling Service and the counselling process.

Your counsellor knows how difficult it can be to ask for help and talk about your problems. They won't mind if you find it hard to express your feelings, or if you cry or get angry. You are in control of the pace at which things happen.

At the end of the consultation, the following outcomes are common:

• Your counsellor recommends self-help resources. This might be particular books, leaflets, websites or other materials.
• Counselling is to continue. Ongoing counselling is not necessarily with the counsellor you see for your consultation, but after the consultation you will see the same counsellor for each appointment.
• No further appointments are needed. This may be because you got what you wanted from the consultation, or because you and your counsellor decided other ways of resolving your problem would be the best option.
• You are referred to specialised or long-term counselling. This might be in a therapeutic group or one-to-one counselling.
• You and your counsellor agree that another source of help is more relevant, eg Centre for Academic Development, a Student Central Adviser, the Brookes Union Advice Centre, a Student Support Co-ordinator, your Academic Advisor.
• Your counsellor gives you information about external sources of help. This might be for private therapy or counselling, specialised services, or other services.

We evaluate our services using a number of clinical measures GAD-7, PHQ-9 & CORE 10. These measures help us understand how you feel, think and cope. You tick a box to answer each question, so it is quick to complete. You will be given the questionnaire when you start and when you end your counselling.