Students in Distress

Recognizing and Responding to Students in Distress

We all face chal­lenges from time to time, and as an instruc­tor, you may be among the first to rec­og­nize a change in a student’s mood, moti­va­tion and/or progress. Even in a dig­i­tal learn­ing envi­ron­ment, there may be signs that a stu­dent needs sup­port. At NIC, we have many resources to sup­port stu­dent suc­cess includ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic, finan­cial and per­son­al sup­ports. You will find these list­ed below along with oth­er tips Rec­og­nize, Respond to and Refer stu­dents in dis­tress.

  • Dif­fi­cul­ty keep­ing up with course work
  • Sus­pect­ed learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ty or dis­abil­i­ty in the areas of read­ing, writ­ing, and com­pre­hen­sion
  • Sig­nif­i­cant dis­crep­an­cy between poten­tial and per­for­mance
  • Assign­ments late, failed, or not sub­mit­ted
  • Fre­quent requests for exten­sions
  • Insuf­fi­cient test prepa­ra­tion
  • Prob­lems with orga­ni­za­tion or time man­age­ment
  • Fail­ing, espe­cial­ly if there has been a drop-in per­for­mance
  • Change in moti­va­tion or atten­dance
  • Phys­i­cal signs of dis­tress or low mood (mild sit­u­a­tion­al depres­sion is a very like­ly out­come of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with COVID 19)

When respond­ing to stu­dents in dis­tress, con­sid­er an appro­pri­ate bal­ance of pro­vid­ing care and respect­ing stu­dents’ auton­o­my and capac­i­ty. Care is the desire to help the stu­dent, and the NIC com­mu­ni­ty to be healthy and suc­cess­ful. Respect involves the belief that the stu­dent is sep­a­rate from you – that they have the right to make their own deci­sions, the capac­i­ty to respond to their own prob­lems, and per­spec­tives and val­ues that are valid for them.

  • Ear­ly Assist is an online refer­ral sys­tem used to con­nect stu­dents with sup­port ser­vices includ­ing coun­selling, aca­d­e­m­ic sup­ports, advis­ing and finan­cial aid. NIC fac­ul­ty and staff are able to make refer­rals through Ear­ly Assist, please con­tact your fac­ul­ty or a staff mem­ber to make a refer­ral. Ear­ly Assist is con­fi­den­tial and does not appear on stu­dent records.
  • The Red Fold­er: A list of NIC and com­mu­ni­ty resources. A Red Fold­er icon can be found on every NIC employee’s desk­top.
  • Finan­cial, Edu­ca­tion­al or Abo­rig­i­nal Advi­sors are avail­able through phone appoint­ments on each cam­pus and appoint­ments can be booked online at NIC Edu­ca­tion­al Advis­ing Appoint­ments
  • Elders in Res­i­dence are here to sup­port Abo­rig­i­nal Stu­dents. Con­tact infor­ma­tion can be found at: Elders in Res­i­dence | North Island Col­lege
  • Coun­selling Ser­vices are avail­able on each cam­pus through tele­phone, email and video appoint­ments and can be booked online. If you need coun­selling sup­port out­side of reg­u­lar office hours, please call the Van­cou­ver Cri­sis Line at 1.888.494.3888 and oth­er community/provincial sup­ports indi­cat­ed in the stu­dent sup­port doc­u­ment below or in the Red Fold­er.
  • Depart­ment of Acces­si­ble Learn­ing sup­ports are avail­able on each cam­pus. Con­tact infor­ma­tion can be found at: Acces­si­ble Learn­ing Ser­vices

  • Down­load­able [PDF] of this web page.