Student Carers Support

“A student who cares, unpaid, for a family member or a friend who due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction cannot cope without their support.” Please note that these duties would be in addition to the usual caring responsibilities that a parent would have for a dependent child, unless the dependent child has a serious illness, mental health problems or disabilities.

Your caring role may be a short term commitment, for instance looking after someone following an accident, or it could be a long term responsibility. While caring can bring lots of positive and rewarding aspects, it can also bring some challenges, particularly alongside studying.

A caring role can vary significantly but may include the following:

• Practical tasks, such as cooking, housework and shopping. 
• Physical care, such as helping someone out of bed. 
• Personal care, such as helping someone dress. 
• Helping to give someone their medication. 
• Managing the family budget. 
• Collecting prescriptions and managing medication. 
• Helping someone communicate. 
• Looking after brothers and sisters. 

The Student Carers Support Package

The Student Carers Support Package has been designed with student carers and local carers associations to offer financial, pastoral and academic support to enable student carers to get the most out of their university experience at Swansea.

Pre-Entry Support 

• Communication with Welfare@CampusLife to discuss the support available to you. This could be face-face, online or via telephone.
• Assistance with planning accommodation for both term and holiday time (if required). The welfare team will help to point you in the right direction.
• Information on eligibility for Student Finance and information on how and when to submit your Student Finance Application is available via our Money@CampusLife. service. You can also check out their Undergraduate and Post-graduate student funding FAQ’s.
• Financial assistance to attend Open Days/interviews.
• The opportunity to meet the Welfare team at open days, applicant visit days and at arrivals weekend.

Support whilst studying

• For full-time undergraduate students, we offer a £1000 bursary in each year of study (where full eligibility criteria is met). This is split into two payments – one instalment of £500 when you complete the application and another £500 in May.
  

• For Postgraduate Students, we offer a total of £1,000 for the duration of their course. If you are studying a PG/second degree which is longer than 1 year, please get in touch. 

Students undertaking 2^nd degrees, or courses such as the PGCE and GEM (which although listed as an UG degree is, in effect, a PG course/2^nd degree will be treated the same as PG students.

Please note: The number of bursaries for each academic year is capped. Priority will be given on a first-come first served basis. Students who fall outside of the cap can discuss additional options with the named contact.

• Students will be assigned a named contact within the Welfare@CampusLife team where regular, non-compulsory support meetings are offered.  

  Your designated contact from the Welfare Team will also contact you throughout the year as a commitment to offering the opportunity for a 1 -1 appointment. These are not mandatory but 1 – 1 time can be beneficial for students to discuss any specific worries or concerns, an opportunity to reflect or set future goals, or as an opportunity to simply chat through how you are getting along.

• Priority access to Swansea University’s Opportunity Award.

• Signposting to a range of other support services from disability services to mental health support and counselling.

The Passport - The carers passport is designed to facilitate academic support i.e Academic adjustments/considerations.

• Your named contact within the Welfare@CampusLife will notify the relevant Faculty support staff that you have been approved for the Passport.  Your faculty will then contact you to discuss your caring responsibilities and to nominate members of staff that you wish to be made aware of.

• Students can request any reasonable adjustments they feel may help their student journey. NOTE: All requests are at the discretion of the faculty and cannot be guaranteed. 

• The passport can be used by students as supporting evidence when applying for Extenuating circumstances if their situation has been impacted by their caring responsibilities. Students may be required to attend a meeting with the faculty support team to discuss the support required.

• Gateway for priority and flexible access to study skills support.

• Direct signposting to specialist support within and external to the University; Wellbeing, Disability, Money@CampusLife, South Wales Police

• You are the primary carer for the person you care for. (i.e You are the main carer and take on full responsiblity)
• You are a ‘Home’ student (EU and International students are not eligible for the financial support, but can access the Pastoral and Academic support).
• You are enrolled on an Undergraduate or Postgraduate Course.
• You are Full Time or Part Time (*Part Time will be paid on a pro rata basis).
• You are an unpaid carer (see above for definition) for a family member or friend who, due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction, cannot cope without your support. Please note that these duties would be in addition to the usual caring responsibilities that a parent would have for a dependent child, unless the dependent child has a serious illness, mental health or disability.

To access the support package, you will need to provide one of these sources of evidence to prove your carers status: 

• A supporting letter on headed paper from an appropriate professional, for example, your GP, other medical professional or manager of a Carers' Centre confirming your carers status.  Your supportive letter will need to include; Your name, who you care for, and a brief outline of your caring responsibilities.
• A document evidencing that you are, or have been, in receipt of Carer’s Allowance.
• A supporting letter from a local voluntary sector young carers project on headed paper or via email from the organisation concerned.
• A supporting letter from your school or college explaining and confirming your status as a carer for someone with long-term ill-health, mental health problems or a disability on headed paper or via email from the organisation concerned.

*Your supportive evidence needs to be dated within the last 12 months.

*We will not be able to accept any letters or documentation regarding the person you care for. The evidence should relate to you as a carer rather than to the person you care for.

*You will only be required to provide evidence once if you continue to access the carers support for the duration of your studies.  If your caring responsibilities do change during your studies, you will be expected to notify Welfare@CampusLife of these changes.

Financial Evidence

• In addition, to proving carers status you will need to provide your award letter from your relevant funding body, for example, Student Finance England/Wales or the NHS for Undergraduate students.
• Post graduate students are expected to show that they have made adequate financial provision for tuition fees and living costs prior to commencing their course. 

*Financial evidence will only be required for accessing the carers bursary.

Students who wish to access Carers Support are welcome to do so by emailing studentcarers.campuslife@swansea.ac.uk

Students who are unsure of what support to access can have a conversation with the welfare team to identify what would be most appropriate. 

Please get in touch and advise us of your situation. You may not be able to access the package at this time, but we may still be able to offer you practical advice and guidance. In the meantime, you may like to consider disclosing your caring situation to either your GP or Social Services. Most GP practices would welcome your disclosure and most have support and advice available for carers.

You can contact us at studentcarers.campuslife@swansea.ac.uk 

Even if you do not feel that you would be eligible for financial support from Social Services, you can still request a carers assessment, which may include non-financial support options. Talking to your GP and/or Social Services is advised by the NHS and please be aware that we would still consider applications later in the academic year once you are in a position to provide evidence. Please see the NHS advice for carers for more information and links to further support.

The University recognises that students may find themselves in the position of being a 'temporary carer' at some point during their studies. This could be because a family member has had an accident, been diagnosed with an illness, or is undergoing treatment and the student needs to take on additional caring responsibilities for a short period whilst they recover.

Students who have temporary caring responsibilities are welcome to apply for the Student Carers Support Package. Applications will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.  These applications will be reviewed on a 6 monthly basis, however, if your circumstances change, we ask that you inform your named contact.

Your application for the Carers Support Package may take up to 5 working day during busy periods.

When applying for the bursary, this can take up to 10 working days for the Money@Campuslife team to process.

You will only be required to provide evidence of your carers status once if you continue to access the package for the duration of your studies.

You are not required to re-apply for the Carers Support Package, but it is the Students responsibility to inform the University if there are any changes throughout the year. 

Your named contact within the Welfare team will make contact with you at the beginning of the Academic year.