What happens when I disclose an incident?

If you have disclosed an incident with your personal details, then a member of the Student Support Team or HR Team will receive your report. 

 

They will contact you via phone or email to invite you to meet with them in person. (If you would prefer to continue to communicate via email or over the phone then this is also absolutely fine). 

 

Our Support Advisors receive extensive training. However, if what you are disclosing relates to sexual violence or relationship abuse then we will ensure that the person contacting you is one of our specially trained advisors. 

 

When you meet with an adviser they will then: 

● Talk to you in more detail about the incident that you’re disclosing in complete confidence.

● Discuss the support you need or would like to consider and help you to access this. This could include support relating to your physical health, mental health, sexual health (for example access to STI checks and contraceptive advice) 

● Support you in accessing support services if you choose to. For example, specialist sexual assault or domestic abuse organisations 

● Provide further information about your reporting options 

○ to the Police (we will not report to the Police without your support)

○ and/or to HR (if the reported person is a staff member)

 

At this initial stage, you do not have to make a formal report. We want to ensure that you have as much information as possible to make an informed choice about your reporting options. If you decide that you only want to access support from the College or specialist support providers, and do not want to make a formal report, then you will not be pressured to do so. 

 

There may however be situations where we need to take action despite your wishes if we believe there is a risk to you or to another person or people. We will not refer to the Police without your prior consent.

Reasonable action may be taken internally to manage the risk but this will always be discussed with you beforehand. 

It is very important that you don’t post details of the incident on Social Media. This could jeopardise the college’s ability to provide a fair and impartial review and potentially put you in contravention of College Policy Please consider that the College has a duty to all parties to provide an objective and unbiased review, offering support to all parties involved.

If you have disclosed anonymously then we will not be able to contact you directly in order to offer support, however, we strongly encourage you to read the support information available on the Report + Support site. If your disclosure relates to Sexual violence/harassment then you may also find the support resources at www.consentcollective.com helpful. 

 

If at any point you decide that you would like to provide a named report and access further support, you can contact the Student Support Team on report-support@rca.ac.uk or (telephone number) who will be more than happy to help.