Student Drug and Alcohol Advisers

Student Drug and Alcohol Advisers are a group of trained student volunteers who can offer confidential advice to other students who may be worried about their own drug or alcohol use, or are worried about a friend.

What can an adviser help with?

The advisers are trained to understand what support is available both at Keele and in the community for students who are struggling with substance use. They can let students know about what support may be appropriate and how to get in touch or make a referral to that team.

An adviser can also signpost students to honest and accurate information about the use of different substances to further educate themselves on using the substance, the effects and the risks.

You can speak to an adviser to discuss getting support for your substance use issues, understanding where to find information or simply for a confidential, non-judgemental chat.

The advisers cannot offer specific harm reduction advice about specific substances and are not trained to deliver any type of clinical intervention. If this is needed, they will instead refer the student into the appropriate team.


What can you get out of speaking to an adviser?

• The student advisers can provide you with a listening ear. You can have a chat with someone who will listen to you without judgement or opinion, to help build your confidence and autonomy.
• The advisers can provide you with options and information that you may not have been aware of and can talk this through with you.
• If there are other issues linked to your substance use, they can also signpost to appropriate support for help with these wider issues for example mental health struggles, or financial difficulties.


The advisers aren’t:
• A drug and alcohol specialist and as such can’t offer any type of assessment or clinical intervention.
• There to offer you harm reduction advice about using specific substances, instead they will show you where to find that information.


How do I speak to a student drug and alcohol adviser?

The advisers will be running a series of drop ins for students. These are just informal, in-person, conversations to discuss whatever concern you have regarding your own or a friend’s substance use.

The advisers will be holding drop ins on the below dates:

  • Tuesday 31 January
  • Thursday 9 February
  • Thursday 16 February
  • Thursday 23 February
  • Thursday 2 March

All drop ins are held in the Tawney Building, but don’t worry, you won’t need to speak to a member of staff when you arrive. You will simply scan a QR code, and an adviser will meet you and take you to a private drop-in room.

If you are unable to attend the above drop ins, or would prefer to meet remotely, you can also request a chat with a student adviser by emailing student.services@keele.ac.uk.


Confidentiality

The conversation that you have with a student adviser is confidential. What this means is that your information, or anything discussed within the meeting, will not be shared with anyone else outside the meeting.

There are however three exceptions to this:

  • If the peer considers you to be at significant risk to yourself
  • If the peer considers you to be at significant risk to others
  • If you consent to your information being passed on for further support

If either of these three instances arise, then Student Services or the Campus Safety Team will be notified.

The adviser will discuss this with you at the start of the session to ensure you are happy with this before you proceed.

See our support webpage for a list of services available to students for drug and alcohol concerns.

You are welcome to have a chat with a student adviser if you have a concern about a friend, and they can talk you through how to have a conversation with your friend about your concerns, as well as inform you about what support services you can discuss with them as well as details of resources that may help educate the friend on use, risks and effects of different substances.

You can see the University’s approach to supporting students with substance use issues here.

If you have concerns that your flatmate is using substances in their halls, then you can call the Campus Safety Team to investigate. This is a minor breach of the License Agreement and in line with the university’s approach, that student would be subject to an educational conversation with a Residence Life Manager if found to be using substances in halls.

The student advisers can talk to you about what support is available at the university as well as services outside of the university that can help.  They can show you how to self-refer to these if you want or support you in making the referral whilst you are with them.