Student Engagement & Support Officers

You will be invited to have a 30 min friendly chat with your respective Student Engagement & Support Officer. The meeting will be student centred, only discussing what you bring to the meeting. Then we will look at the options available to you and plan the next steps. 

Where relevant our team may need to refer you to another service, staff member, or department in the university.

The Student Engagement & Support Officers assist full time undergraduate students in their faculty. Students who are unsure of who to contact can contact our team by emailing seso@ul.ie

Struggling academically, Personal/Health Issues, Financial concerns, Course Uncertainty, Exit Forms, Internal Transfers, Family Issues/Homesickness, Bereavement. This list is not exhaustive, and students should still contact an SSO even if their issue is not mentioned here. There is never an issue too big or too small. 

Confidentiality agreement
UL Student Engagement and Support Officers offer a strictly confidential service. This means that what you say stays within the service. Your personal details are not disclosed to anyone outside of the service without your permission. Where you give specific consent, we may liaise with other individuals or agencies to support your care. There are two circumstances in which UL Student Engagement and Support Officers may need to break confidentiality and one circumstance where we are legally obliged to break confidentiality. We may break confidentiality if you disclose a risk of harm to yourself or harm to others. If the service believes that you or someone else is in danger of serious harm then we may take steps to minimise this danger and will discuss these steps with you where possible. We are legally obliged to break confidentiality if you disclose child abuse (i.e., physical abuse; sexual abuse; emotional abuse) or neglect. Such incidents must be reported to TUSLA (the Child and Family Agency) whether they relate to risk in the present (current disclosure) or risk in the past (retrospective disclosure). UL Student Engagement and Support Officers will clearly articulate what this will mean for you should this happen.

Case-notes
The service maintains electronic case-notes on all clients. Doing so helps staff recall and think about each student’s personal situation. Access to this electronic database is provided only to authorised staff within the student support service. Your personal data is collected and processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) / Data Protection Acts 1988-2018 and with the University's Student Data Protection Privacy Notice. Should you wish to access your file, you can formally request access to your personal data by making a Data Protection Access request or a Freedom of Information request.

Consent to liaise with supports
Depending on your circumstances, it may be useful for members of the service to liaise with staff members of the university/campus to support you. Such staff members include but are not limited to: tutors; lecturers; placement co-ordinators; accommodation managers; student affairs; and student academic administration. The Student Engagement and Support Officers will always discuss potential liaison with you in advance. Unless your safety is at risk, we will not liaise without your consent.

Data retention
Personal data and case-notes are stored for 7 years in compliance with data regulations and the UL records management policy. All data is stored on a limited access site. 

Feedback and Complaints 
We ask for feedback from all students who use the service as it enables us to ensure a quality service. You will be sent an invitation to complete an online feedback questionnaire at the end of your engagement with the service. 
 
In the event of a complaint regarding the service, we encourage you to first bring it to the attention of your student engagement and support officer. If this is not possible or suitable, you can contact the Student Support and Development Manager. Alternatively, you may express yourself via the feedback link on Student Affairs website. Please check the Student Complaints Policy and Procedure for further information.

There may be times when a Student Engagement and Support Officer feels another support service may be better equipped to support the student, we will only refer students after receiving permission to do so from the student. 

Student Engagement and Support Officers recognise there may be times when parents/guardians may have concerns or questions, in relation to their son’s or daughter’s experience here in UL. The Student Engagement and Support Officers wish to cultivate a relationship with all students based on trust and confidentiality. If you have concerns, we will ask first that you encourage your son/daughter to contact our team. If the student wishes for us to communicate directly with you, we require written permission to do so, all correspondence will be copied to the student for the purpose of transparency.