Student Wellbeing Officer

Department: Student Wellbeing 

Location: Birmingham (On-site)

Type of Contract: Permanent - Full Time – 40hrs per week

Shift Pattern: 9:00-5:30pm

About GBS: GBS is a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses across ten campuses in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. Working in partnership with several of the UK’s leading higher education providers, we deliver vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in finance, accounting, business, construction, tourism, healthcare, and more.

GBS' Vision: Changing lives through education.

What The Team Do: Supporting students' well-being by offering help with mental health, personal issues, and practical concerns like housing or finances. Providing guidance, crisis support, and promote a safe, inclusive environment to help students succeed both personally and academically.

The role: Your work within Student Wellbeing will focus on working in partnership with students to identify barriers to learning, and provide ongoing support according to their needs. The work you do will help students manage social and emotional issues, enable our staff to provide the best support to learners with wellbeing needs, and help the enable the students you work with to get the best out of their study with GBS!

The purpose of this role is to provide guidance and support to GBS students in their learning, wellbeing and engagement throughout their studies. Your key task will be to address student welfare by pastoral support and by guiding students to services appropriate to their needs. GBS Welfare Officers can expect to be among the first members of staff to be approached by students needing assistance with a variety of issues. Welfare officers must know all services and academic programmes offered by GBS, as well as appropriate external agencies and be ready to refer students to appropriate services. The Student Welfare Officer reports into the Student Welfare Manager.

Please note, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this position.

What the role involves:

• Managing student referrals, alongside the Student Welfare Manager, acting as a link between the Welfare Office, the relevant academic team and relevant internal and external services.
• Providing pastoral support to students who may be experiencing social or emotional issues. To ensure students with personal learning plans receive the learning accommodations outlined in the plan and that these are addressed in the classroom.
• Maximising the attendance of students by working alongside the student engagement managers to support students effectively throughout their studies.
• To provide immediate assistance to students on a drop in and appointment basis.
• To maintain accurate student welfare records and information and ensure confidential records are held and shared in line with GDPR requirements.
• To assist with the organisation of health and wellbeing social activities and events for students. 

What Experience/Skills are required:

• Bachelor’s degree in the relevant area, preferably health related
• Prior experience in an adjacent or similar role, preferably within higher education.
• Have knowledge of: - the DDA and SENDA and to know how to implement their guidelines - the JCQ and the range of  reasonable adjustments that may apply to students with learning differences and individual needs
• Experience of working with a range of physical disabilities and specific learning difficulties encountered in mainstream schools such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit and Asperger's syndrome.
• Experience of selecting and using appropriate assessment materials, score results, convert raw scores to derived scores, analyse results, draw conclusions and make recommendations.
• The ability to discuss student's needs in a sensitive manner and together plan a programme of Additional Support to facilitate outcomes of personal targets and tutor targets.

What We Offer:

• 25 days annual leave, plus 8 public holidays
• 1-day extra leave per year of service, up to a maximum of 5 days
• Workplace pension scheme
• Tuition reimbursement for career development courses
• Flexible Benefits: Cycle to Work, Workplace Nursery, Techscheme and much more
• Perks@Work discounts platform, wellbeing centre and much more
• Reward and recognition programme
• £500 award employee referral scheme
• Discretionary annual performance bonus

GBS supported my development by enrolling me in an external Leadership and Management course, which equipped me with the tools to drive my team towards continued growth and success. Before joining GBS, I did not envision myself as a manager, but I have now found my passion in leadership.  — Ebony Bates (Professional Services Employee)