Students with caring responsibilities

What does a Caring Role look like?

Caring responsibilities can vary widely. You might be:

• Providing long-term care for someone with a chronic illness or disability.
• Supporting someone short-term, such as during recovery from an accident.

Whatever your situation, there is support at the University to help you navigate university life while managing your responsibilities.

Are you a Young Adult Carer?

If you're aged 16–25 and regularly care for a family member, partner, or friend, you’re considered a young adult carer. Along with Support available at the University, there are a number of external sources of help available to you, such as the Carers Trust and The Children’s Society.

Support on offer at the University

Whilst you are Caring, you may be eligible for additional support while studying — this help can include academic flexibility, access to wellbeing services and financial advice. To discuss support, you can contact the Wellbeing team. Your Personal tutor can also refer you to the Wellbeing Service.

Financial advice

If you’re a student carer and find yourself in financial difficulty, we have our dedicated Student Advice team who can provide you with guidance on Student Finance England funding, alternative funding options, Budgeting tips and access to relevant hardship funds at the University.

For more details about this service, visit our Student Advice page.

Study support

If you need support with your academic work, you can contact your personal tutor, module leaders or supervisors, who will be able to talk through any challenges or needs you may have.

If you have missed any classes due to your caring responsibilities, your Personal tutors can help arrange a time to catch up or provide guidance on how to stay on track. You can also discuss your circumstances with individual module leaders or supervisors, or any member of staff at the University you feel comfortable talking to.

If for any reason you have difficulty reaching out for help, do contact the Student Centre, who will be there to guide you to the right support.

Looking after your wellbeing

Our Student Wellbeing team can support you with a range of advice, guidance and support to help you look after your physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing. All services are confidential and delivered by trained and experienced staff. Wellbeing staff's priority is to ensure that your time studying at the Westminster is a positive one.

For further information on how to access this service, visit our Student Wellbeing page.

Access to Counselling

You will have access to trained counsellors and mental health advisers who can talk with you about anything that might be bothering you from an inability to study, poor concentration and depression, to relationship problems and bereavement.

Please visit our Counselling and Mental Health Service page for further information on this service.

Other sources of help

• Carers UK
• Carers Network