Emergency or trusted contact

We ask every student to give us the details of someone we can contact if we have concerns about your safety or wellbeing. UWE Bristol currently records this person as your emergency contact. You may also hear the term trusted contact. 

On this page, we use trusted contact to refer to this person. We explain who to choose, when we may contact them, what information we may share and how to keep their details up to date.

What is a trusted contact

Your trusted contact should normally be someone aged 18 years or over, who knows you well and has an ongoing relationship with you. 

They should know that you have named them as your trusted contact and be willing and able to respond if we contact them. This could be a parent, carer, legal guardian, partner, adult sibling, another adult family member or a trusted family friend, if appropriate.

Another student or a casual friend is not normally an appropriate trusted contact, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Naming someone as your trusted contact does not mean they can automatically receive information about you or make decisions on your behalf.

Why we ask for a trusted contact

We ask you to name someone you trust, who could help if circumstances become difficult. This can help us take reasonable steps to support you in a way that is informed by your individual circumstances, preferences and choices.

Someone who knows you well may be able to help us understand what has happened, check that you are safe, share important information, or support you to access the right help.

Contacting an emergency or trusted contact is part of a careful and supportive response. We may also involve teams across the University, emergency services, the National Health Service or other statutory services where needed.

When we might involve your trusted contact

We may contact your trusted contact if we have concerns about your safety or wellbeing, or if there may be a risk to you or someone else. We will think carefully about the situation and only do this when we believe it may help keep you or others safe. Most students will never need us to use their trusted contact.

We may use your trusted contact if: 

• We have an immediate or reasonable concern about your physical or mental health or safety
• You have been taken to hospital or there is another medical emergency
• We think you may be missing or we cannot confirm that you are safe
• We have been unable to contact you and our other attempts to support you have not resolved the concern;
• Your behaviour or circumstances suggest there may be a risk to you or to other people
• We need to share information because we have a legal duty to do so.

Involving you

Where it is safe and practical, we will usually try to involve you before contacting your trusted contact.

We will explain what we are concerned about and listen to your views.

There may be times when we need to contact your trusted contact without your agreement. This may happen if there is a reasonable or immediate risk, if we cannot contact you, or if we have a legal reason to share information.

We will consider this carefully and only share information that is relevant to the situation.

Information we may share

We will only share information that is relevant to the concern and the support needed. This may include what we are worried about, what action has already been taken, and what help we are asking your trusted contact to provide.

We will not routinely share wider information about your studies, health or use of support services simply because someone is listed as your trusted contact.

If you are someone’s trusted contact

If a student has named you as their trusted contact, they have identified you as someone who may be able to help if we have concerns about their safety or wellbeing. If we contact you, we will explain what we can about the situation and what support or information we are asking you to provide.

Being named as a trusted contact does not mean that we can routinely share information about the student with you, and there may be some information we are unable to share.

We recognise that being contacted in these circumstances can be worrying, and we will communicate clearly and sensitively about what is happening and what, if anything, we are asking you to do.

Where to find out more

You can find more information about how UWE Bristol uses student information and the expectations that apply to enrolled students in the following documents.

• Student Privacy Notice - explains what personal data UWE Bristol holds, how it is used, when it may be shared, and students’ information rights.
• Terms and conditions - sets out the University’s relationship with enrolled students, including information about emergency contacts, data protection and the Statement of Expectation.

If you have questions about how your personal data is used, contact the UWE Bristol Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@uwe.ac.uk.