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Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service

Welcome to the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service

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Closure Announcement

The Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service will close for the winter break at 4pm on 22nd December and reopen at 9am on 5th January.

During this time, you can still complete a referral form, but please note, it will only be reviewed when the service reopens on the 5th January 2026 at 9am. We encourage you to use other sources of help for urgent support. 

To make a referral

To make a referral via our referral form

Please complete the referral form for either yourself or if you're concerned about a student. If you have any issues with the form, contact referraltoscmhas@imperial.ac.uk or would like additional information, visit the How to Contact Us page.

Please note - The service will close for the winter break from 4pm 22nd December. Your submission will be reviewed once the service reopens on 5th January at 9am.

To make a referral via telephone

If you would like to speak to someone on the telephone about a referral to the Student Counselling & Mental Health Advice Service, please call 020 7594 3224.

Please note - Our telephone line will be closed for the winter break from 4pm on 22nd December to 9am on 5th January. Please use the referral form if you would like to complete a referral (Note: Your submission will be reviewed once the service reopens on 5th January at 9am).

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Welcome to the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service.

Urgent care

Urgent care

If you need urgent help please contact your doctor, or Imperial College Health Centre on 020 7584 6301.

You can also ask to see someone at the Accident and Emergency department of your nearest hospital. Information about your local A&E services can be found here. Call 999 if you need help straight away

Other urgent out of hours mental health support

Samaritans - for people experience high levels of distress including suicidal feelings. Call 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org, this service is 24 hours.

Shout crisis text service - offers a 24 hour text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere. Text 'SHOUT' to 85258.

Our Services

Find out more about the different types of support we offer below.

Our Services

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Counselling

The Counselling Service offers both individual and group counselling in the form of talking therapy to help students explore and address a specific emotional difficulty or concern. For individual counselling, we offer up to 5 sessions of brief, focused counselling usually occurring weekly. Our therapeutic groups are run termly, meeting once a week for 6 weeks with the same group of students each week.
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Mental Health Advice

For students experiencing moderate to severe or enduring mental health difficulties, the Mental Health Advice Team offer support on an ongoing or intermittent basis during your studies to help you manage the impact of your mental health difficulties and to liaise with your academics and medical professionals as needed.
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Mental Health Intervention Officers

If you have concerns about your own wellbeing or the wellbeing of another another student and want advice on where to get support, this team is here to help assess your needs and signpost you to the appropriate services. This is usually a one-off appointment rather than ongoing emotional support.

Parts of the Service

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Mental Health Study Mentors

Study mentoring is a form of specialist support for students with mental health and neurodevelopmental difficulties. It is designed to support students to keep on track with their academic work by helping students to identify the impact of their condition upon their learning and to develop effective study strategies.
Workshop

Psychoeducational Workshops, Courses and Webinars

Our Service offers a variety of one-off psychoeducational workshops and webinars on topics such as procrastination, sleep, perfectionism, relationships ,and exam stress throughout the year. We also offer a 4-week course based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for those struggling with low mood as well as a 4-week mindfulness-based course for stress reduction.
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Self-Directed Support

Often a good place to start, we’ve put together some self-directed support full of useful information and strategies to help you find ways of coping with your difficulties and improving your wellbeing. This includes our Kind Mind video series, symptom-specific resources, Silver Cloud - our online CBT modules - as well as a list of useful external and crisis resources.

Find out more about how your information is stored and used

Confidentiality & Data Protection Policy

Privacy Policy

We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Please let us know your thoughts about the Student Counselling & Mental Health Advice Service. We take your comments seriously and they help us to plan for the future.