Support
Our dedicated Student Services Team are here to Advise, Support and Guide you at all points of your college journey, all you need to do is ask.
We understand that everyone is an individual and that you may require some additional support to help you achieve your full potential.
Within our Learning Support Team, we have a number of experienced advisers who provide you with the support you need and have experience in working with individuals affected by a wide range of health conditions, learning difficulties and disabilities including:
- Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Dyslexia
- Visual impairments
Let us know
If you have additional support needs, it is always best to tell us in advance of starting your course so we can plan your support.
What type of support is available?
Depending on your needs, additional support may include:
- Information and guidance for you and your teaching staff
- Help to access financial support, Disabled Students Allowance (Higher Education only)
- Access to assistive technology e.g. electronic spellcheckers, digital voice recorders
- Learning Skills and support for additional study skills
- Alternative Assessment Arrangements such as a reader/scribe, electronic papers, extra time.
Contact us
If you would like to discuss learning support please email:
There are times in life when we may need some extra support with our mental health. This can be due to high stress, academic challenges, isolation, changes in circumstances and bereavement. Our Student Support Advisors can offer you advice and guidance to help you stay mentally healthy and provide you with information on how to access the supports and services available within your Community.
Contact us
If you would like to speak to someone about your Mental Health, email studentadvice@borderscollege.ac.uk, call 01896 662516 or pop in to see us at the Advice Centre based on the Galashiels Campus.
NHS Borders also have a useful website with links to resources and information to help you look after your mental health and wellbeing:
What if I am in crisis?
Please note that the Student Support Services team are not a crisis service. In the event of a crisis, please contact one of the organisations using the link below. If you need urgent assistance, please dial 999.
Our Student Advisers can provide you with support and guidance on a range of issues, we encourage you to get in touch, we are here to listen and support. Accessing support early can often stop a small problem becoming a crisis. The team also works closely with the Student Funding team and have a great deal of experience supporting students with a range of issues including:
- Course Information and Advice
- Emotional and Personal Wellbeing
- Mental Health
- Financial/Money Issues
- Housing issues
- Travel/Transport
- UCAS/SAAS application support
- Support to access Careers advice
Contact us
If you would like to speak to one of our Advisers, email studentadvice@borderscollege.ac.uk, call 01896 662516 or pop into see us at the Advice Centre.
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In line with the Scottish Governments commitment to provide access to free sanitary products, Borders College makes available a wide range of products to students and staff. We are committed to supporting equality, dignity and rights for all those who menstruate and ensure that there is no impact on an individual’s ability to fully participate in education at all levels.
Our free sanitary products are available in various locations across all our campuses and we also offer, in partnership with an award winning social enterprise, the opportunity to order products online and have them delivered directly to your chosen address.
Working closely with our Students' Association we will ensure:
- A free of charge range of products
- Access to re-usable and sustainable options
- Availability within toilet facilities and student support facilities
- Provision with dignity and respect
- Communication and information on our student portal
- Equality for all, reducing negative stigma across our College community
Students have access to further details about FREE sanitary provision on the Borders College Student Portal here.
Further info
Borders College welcomes students who require an Assistance Dog. Please let us know in advance if you do have a professionally trained and accredited assistance dog to help you with your daily life and independence. This will enable us to ensure that College staff are aware of the presence of your assistance dog and the requirement for this.
Assistance Dog is a generic term for a guide, hearing, or service dog specifically trained to do three or more tasks to mitigate the effects of an individual’s disability.
The presence of a dog for protection, personal defence, or comfort does not qualify that dog as an assistance dog and as such we are unable to accommodate your dog on this basis.
It will be expected that all accredited assistant dogs wear the appropriate identification tags, leads or harnesses associated with the service they provide while on campus.
Further definitions:
Guide Dog: A dog that guides individuals who are blind or visually impaired. The presence of a dog for protection, personal defence, or comfort does not qualify that dog as a guide dog.
- Guide Dogs help their users to travel around independently and safely, giving their users more independence, freedom and confidence.
- Guide Dogs make navigating streets much less stressful by assisting their users to find locations, avoid obstacles and stop at curbs.
- Guide Dogs make it easier for the person who is blind or vision-impaired to use public transport, navigate shopping centres and buildings, find doors, seats and pedestrian crossing buttons.
- Guide Dogs provide companionship and promote social inclusion.
Hearing Dog: A dog that alerts individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to specific sounds. The presence of a dog for protection, personal defence, or comfort does not qualify that dog as a hearing dog.
- Hearing Dogs assist deaf and hard of hearing individuals by alerting them to a variety of household sounds such as a door knock or doorbell, alarm clock, oven buzzer, telephone, baby crying, name call or smoke alarm.
- Hearing Dogs are trained to make physical contact and lead their deaf partners to the source of the sound.
- Hearing Dogs are generally mixed breeds acquired from animal shelters and are small to medium in size. Prior to formal audio response training, the puppies/dogs are raised and socialised by volunteer puppy raisers.
- Hearing Dogs are identified by leash and/or vest.
Service Dog: A dog that works for individuals with disabilities other than blindness or deafness. Service dogs are trained to perform a wide variety of tasks including but not limited to; pulling a wheelchair, bracing, retrieving, alerting to a medical crisis, and providing assistance in a medical crisis.
- Service Dogs are professionally trained dogs that help mitigate many different types of disabilities.
- Service Dogs can be trained to work with people who have power or manual wheelchairs, have balance issues, have various types of autism, need seizure alert or response, need to be alerted to other medical issues like low blood sugar, or have psychiatric disabilities.
- Service Dogs can help by retrieving dropped objects that are out of their person's reach, by pulling wheelchairs, opening and closing doors, turning light switches off and on, barking to indicate that help is needed, finding another person and leading the person to the handler, assisting ambulatory person to walk by providing balance and counterbalance, providing deep pressure, and many other individual tasks as needed by a person with a disability.
- Service dog types include: Mobility Service Dog, Seizure Service Dog, Autism Service Dog, Diabetic Alert Service Dog, Psychiatric Service Dog, Service Dogs for Veterans with Military-related PTSD and Medical Alert Service Dog.
Do you have unpaid caring responsibilities for a family member or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or has mental health or addiction problems?
At Borders College we are committed to promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of students with unpaid caring responsibilities. We work closely with you and the people who support you to offer impartial advice and guidance to enable you to attend a college course and achieve your goals.
It is important to tell us if you are a Student Carer. Our commitment through our Care Aware service is to support you in every way we can; to assist in removing obstacles and to help to ensure you have the best possible experience with us. You will have a named contact who will be your dedicated contact throughout your chosen programme of study.
Our Commitment to Student Carers
We are proud to have been awarded the Carers Trust Scotland 'Going Further' Recognition Award to show that we are committed to supporting Student Carers through their learner journey.
Your named contact will support you to overcome any additional barriers created by any life circumstances which may affect your attendance, progression and achievement on your chosen programme of study.
If you tell us that you are a Student Carer we will:
- be there to provide you with help and advice about courses, funding, and support services;
- help make the transition to college as smooth as possible (this might be as simple as showing you around the campus before you become a student);
- guide you on your funding entitlement
- guide and support you during your studies, in a way that is seamless and invisible to others;
- listen and be responsive to your needs and what matters to you;
- help you to overcome any obstacles that arise or could become a barrier to success;
- be there when you need us and as a friendly face just to ask how you are doing;
- work in partnership with other staff e.g. Course Tutor, the Students’ Association, Support Agencies to help ensure you are listened to, supported, included, respected, achieving, nurtured, healthy, active, responsible and able to access the fullest range of services and opportunities.
Debbie Whellans, Student Support Services
Telephone: 01896 662516
Text: 07717423627
Email: careaware@borderscollege.ac.uk
There are a number of agencies which support student carers:
At Borders College we are committed to promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of students who are care-experienced. We work closely with you and the people who support you to offer impartial advice and guidance to enable you to attend a college course and achieve your goals.
It is important to tell us if you are Care-Experienced. Our commitment through our Care Aware service is to support you in every way we can; to listen to what matters to you; to provide you with advice and guidance so that you have a clear pathway to thrive and achieve and to ensure you have the best possible experience with us. You will have a named contact who will be your dedicated contact throughout your chosen programme of study.
You can tell us any time, but sooner is always better. Even if you are just thinking about college as a possibility, your named contact will help you explore your interests, find the best course, talk through your options, funding and support. If you do decide to study, they’ll even help you to fill out your application forms.
Your named contact will support you to navigate any concerns created by any life circumstances which may affect your attendance, progression and achievement on your chosen programme of study.
We are incredibly proud to be a Corporate Parent and are committed to fulfilling and exceeding our statuary duties under Part 9 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
In February 2020, The Independent Care Review’s ‘Promise’ was launched which gives corporate parents a very clear message and direction to improve services and supports available to Care-Experienced young people. https://thepromise.scot/
Successful corporate parenting requires passion, commitment, partnership working and engagement across all agencies. It requires everyone, from the head of organisations to front line staff, to take a proactive approach to better understand their corporate parenting responsibilities and improve their practice accordingly.
Borders College will continue to work in partnership with other Corporate Parents to enable care-experienced young people, to feel nurtured, listened to and supported to achieve their individual potential.
- be there when you need us and as a friendly face just to ask how you are doing;
- be there to provide you with help and advice about courses, funding, and support services;
- help make the transition to college as smooth as possible (this might be as simple as showing you around the campus before you become a student);
- guide you on your funding entitlement
- guide and support you during your studies, in a way that is seamless and invisible to others;
- listen and be responsive to your needs and what matters to you;
- help you to navigate any obstacles that arise;
- work in partnership with other staff e.g. Course Tutor, the Students’ Association, Support Agencies to help ensure you are listened to, supported, included, respected, achieving, nurtured, healthy, active, responsible and able to access the fullest range of services and opportunities.
Debbie Whellans, Student Support Services
Telephone: 01896 662516
Text: 07717423627
Email: careaware@borderscollege.ac.uk
Scottish Care Leavers’ CovenantScottish Care Leavers’ Covenant
We are proud to work with the Scottish Care Leavers' Covenant to help improve outcomes for care-experienced young people.
The Scottish Care Leavers Covenant is a bold step to make the changes needed to give care leavers the bright and better future they deserve.
Who Cares? Scotland
Borders College is working in partnership with Who Cares? Scotland, who work with care-experienced young people throughout Scotland.
Their mission is to see a Scotland where care-experienced people are equal members of society. They want those with experience of care to know that they are not alone.
Propel
Looking to access Education? – Propel can help!!
Propel aims to help more care-experienced young people enter further or higher education and complete their course. Propel have collated information from institutions containing an overview of the support it offers to care leavers.
We are committed to working with estranged students to understand the barriers they face and ensure that we support them in their chosen course of study. We fully recognise the additional obstacles to learning that estranged students may face, without the support of a family network.
That is why we have signed up for the Stand Alone Pledge to show our support for estranged students and to highlight the services available to them within the College.
Within our Student Services team an Advisor will be your named staff contact and will provide support throughout your time at college. We will work closely with external agencies, where relevant, to ensure you receive the advice and guidance required to help you move forward on your student journey.
The type of support available can include:
- Course options and assistance with completing the application and personal statement.
- Arranging a visit to see the facilities to help with orientation.
- Guidance and advice on funding, childcare, discretionary, accommodation and travel.
- Introduction to the Learning Support Team
- Assistance with accessing additional support services, such as in-house counselling, pastoral support or mental health services.
- Meeting with you regularly to review ongoing support, where appropriate
- Discuss how you are progressing with your studies and offer support towards your next steps after College.
If you would like further information on the support available to you, then please visit the Advice Centre and speak with a member of the Student Services team. Alternatively, you can contact studentadvice@borderscollege.ac.uk
Stand Alone Pledge
http://www.thestandalonepledge.org.uk/
Stand Alone
https://www.standalone.org.uk/
BSL Action Plan
Our BSL Action Plan has been developed to support the BSL National Plan for Scotland.
Corporate Parenting Plan
The College is identified as a ‘Corporate Parent’ in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
You can download a copy of our Corporate Parenting Plan by following the link below.
