Sometimes, things might go wrong. This guide will help prepare yourself for every eventuality, including signposting members to welfare resources, reporting incidents and accidents, making complaints, and responding to challenging situations and disclosures.
In an Emergency
In an emergency, always phone 999 (or your local equivalent if you are overseas) and ask for the appropriate service (police, ambulance, fire brigade), or make your your way to the Accident and Emergency Department (A&E) at your local hospital.
- The closest A&E to the UCL Bloomsbury campus is at University College London Hospital, located on Euston Road between Warren Street and Euston Square stations.
- The closest A&E to the UCL East campus is at Homerton University Hospital.
For emergency security support on campus, you can contact the UCL Security team:
- Via the SafeZone app
- Call +44 (0)20 7679 2222 (Bloomsbury Campus)
- Call +44 (0)208 0168 555 (UCL East)
Signposting to Welfare Resources & Contacts
There is lots of support available to UCL students from both the University and Students' Union, as well as local and national external resources.
Please visit (and signpost to) our dedicated Welfare Resources & Contacts webpage for more information.
Reporting Incidents or Accidents
All accidents and near misses must be reported to the Union. We recognise that in spite of all reasonable precautions accidents/incidents/near misses can still occur during activities. The following procedures are designed to:
- provide fast and safe help to all concerned.
- to supply the Union/UCL with the specific information needed.
- to protect the individual(s) concerned their relatives, the Activity Organiser, Activity Leaders and Union officials, from any media involvement.
Reporting via UCL riskNet
For all accidents, injuries or near misses, the activity leader must complete an Incident/Accident Report Form online via UCL riskNET no later than 24 hours after the incident.
Report an incident on UCL RiskNet here
Anyone can use this form, and everyone involved in activities should be aware of this procedure.
- This is particularly important if anyone wants to make a claim under our personal accident insurance – if we don’t have a report, it makes it much more difficult to make a claim.
- In the event of an incident on College or Union property the activity leader must immediately contact a member of staff, who will be familiar with the relative incident procedure and the availability of first aiders.
- After an incident, it is important that you review your risk assessment and consider whether changes could be made to avoid a reoccurrence.
- Serious Injury or Death
We hope this is something you will never have to refer to, but in the event of a death or serious/life threatening injury you should follow the procedure below:
- The activity leader should contact the appropriate emergency service and provide them with any personal details, including next of kin details if available. The activity leader should advise that no member of the group attempt to contact the next of kin directly.
- The activity leader will contact the UCL Communications Centre on 020-7679-3333 (24 hours) and provide the casualty’s name and student number, details of the incident, and details of the hospital to which the casualty has been taken.
- Please also make sure you let us know via email or by phoning the Activities Reception as soon as you can safely do so.
Insurance and Making a Claim
Students' Union holds Public Liability Insurance, which covers activity as risk assessed and approved in your core risk assessment and any approved additional risk assessments.
If you need a copy of the policy (sometimes you need this to make external facility bookings), please request it by emailing su.activities@ucl.ac.uk.
Coaches and instructors must have their own public liability insurance cover in place. This must be provided during the coach/instructor registration process.
For more information, please see our dedicated how-to guide on Insurance.
Conflict and Misconduct
It’s very common for a committee to experience some conflict over the year. Running a student group can be stressful, especially alongside a challenging degree and other commitments. It’s valuable to know how best to manage situations of conflict, and what to do if the conflict escalates into misconduct.
- Avoiding Conflict
Conflict is less likely to arise when there is:
- Clear direction
- Encouragement of difference in opinion
- Mutual accountability
- Open and honest communication
- Common goals
- Team trust
- Defined committee roles
- Collaboration
- Positive approach to change
Within your group, you should look to create a culture that fosters the above environment from the beginning. However, conflict can occur even when this environment is in place. Causes of conflict could be:
- Personal issues
- Unclear committee roles
- Inadequate training
- Poor communication
It's important to deal with conflict as soon as it occurs. This means facing it head-on and probably having some difficult conversations. This might feel really hard, but it will support your own personal and professional development, as well as working to resolve the issues!
Familiarise yourself with our Leadership Training Module for more guidance on being a great leader and working with your committee..
- Responding to Conflict
To face conflict you should:
- Use an informal process where possible.
- Look to nip it in the bud and prevent it escalating.
- Focus on the behaviours that have been displayed.
An informal approach to conflict should follow these steps:
- Meet with those involved separately to find out their perspective, and listen carefully to what they have to say.
- In these meetings, ask each party to think about how the conflict could be resolved.
- Advise each party that if the issue is not resolved informally, the next steps would be to involve Students' Union UCL through a more formal process.
- If a solution is possible, work with both parties together to move forward positively.
- You could arrange a meeting between both parties to talk through what's happened.
- Students' Union UCL can support you with this, such as having a member of staff present.
- Monitor the situation and any agreement which has been put in place.
If at any stage a disclosure is made to you regarding harassment, violence, sexual violence, bullying or discrimination, please advise the student where to seek help from our guide on Dealing with Challenging Situations and Receiving Disclosures.
Misconduct
If you witness any form of bullying, harassment or inappropriate behaviour at an event you should report it to one of our staff immediately. As a leader it is not enough to be passive when tackling inappropriate behaviour, you must be actively inclusive, lead by example, set a positive tone and call out people who do not act appropriately.
- If you see inappropriate behaviour in person or online, it is your job to intervene if safe to do so and call this out. Stepping in early can diffuse the situation.
- We can support you to challenge harassment and are always happy to help you tackle any issues – if you don’t know what to do, get in contact and we can help you decide what approach to take.
- We take any cases of bullying and harassment very seriously and will consider taking disciplinary action as necessary, including reporting individuals to UCL for more severe action.
- Recognise that what might not be seen as offensive to some individuals, can be very hurtful or distressing to others. You do not know the different backgrounds of all your members.
- Create and uphold clear boundaries of respect within your committee and society and lead by example of how to communicate. You should welcome any feedback and make interventions as necessary to ensure all feel welcome.
Making a Complaint
If you have a complaint to make about a club, society, or committee member, you should follow the procedure below.
Under no circumstances should you complain directly to the person involved if its about them, and you should avoid creating gossip, rumour and distress for any other club or society members as this can also be a disciplinary matter. Check Section 3 of the Club and Society Regulations for full details of the procedure.
- Informal Complaints
If you wish to make an informal complaint, you should submit your complaint in writing to the relevant team:
- Sports Clubs: teamucl@ucl.ac.uk
- Arts Societies: artsucl@ucl.ac.uk
- Other Societies: su.activities@ucl.ac.uk
Anything you say will be held in confidence unless you agree to make your comments public or they affect the safety and wellbeing of a Student's Union UCL Member(s)/UCL Student(s).
We will then consider the complaint in line with Students' Union UCL Complaints Procedure, and get back to you with any further actions required, or comments. Depending on the nature of the complaint, this may be passed on to the Activities and Engagement Officer or Activities Zone.
- Formal Complaints
If the issue can't be resolved, or you wish to make a formal complaint.
Please visit our complaints page for more information.
If your complaint is about an individual, then this will normally be investigated under our Disciplinary Procedure. Please note that if it is about another member, then the complaint would need to be about an event or act that took place specifically within the context of Students' Union UCL membership, such as through a club or society event.
We can't investigate complaints that are about events not specific to Union membership.
- Report + Support
Report + Support - University College London
Everyone at the UCL, whether studying, working, or visiting, has the right to feel safe. Harassment of any kind is completely unacceptable, and our community is an environment where prejudice and socially unacceptable behaviour are never tolerated.
If you would like to receive further support while remaining anonymous, you can enable two-way messaging before submitting your report.
Contact:
If you have any questions, feedback, or concerns about the contents of this guide, please email us at su.activities@ucl.ac.uk.
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- If Things Go Wrong