Welfare in most of the student residences at the University of Birmingham is covered by the Student Mentor Scheme (SMS): Mentors are students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, from the UK and abroad, who provide welfare support.
All students in these residences are assigned a mentor, who is there to support and listen to them if they have any welfare-related problems, such as flat problems, housing issues, finance worries, academic, emotional support, safety and security advice, financial concerns and employment information. They will visit students regularly to see how they are getting on and to offer help if needed. They also distribute regular information campaigns about a variety of student issues, including stress, flatmates and personal safety.
Although they are given comprehensive training, mentors are not trained counsellors, and so are not there to give advice or tell people what to do. They will, however, listen to whatever people want to talk about and give details of where they can go for more expert help, if necessary. Mentors will respect privacy and confidentiality.
In addition there is also a mentor 'on-call' every night during term time. This means that if someone is having a problem or crisis late at night, there will be a Mentor available on site to offer support.
We are now recruiting for Student Mentors 2010-11 at all University-owned accommodation and nominated sites. There are a limited number of places left so if you want to find out more about recruitment and the Student Mentor Scheme then please email mentors@guild.bham.ac.uk