If you require mental health crisis support, please contact your local mental health services, your GP, or telephone 111 or the emergency services.

Home > House Rules

House Rules

This page sets out the house rules that we expect visitors and students to adhere to whilst using the website and e-learning site.

Welcome to the Recovery College Online. We hope that you’ll feel safe whilst using our site. We’ve put together a few tips to help you get started. We’ll also explain below what you can expect from us.

Moodle Students – Demonstrating respect

  • Treat others the way we would like to be treated
  • Respect other users privacy
  • Let us know if you see something that worries you by using our Get In Touch page
  • If you think that you may need more urgent help, please reach out for offline support

Moodle Students will not:

  • Tell people what to do or give ‘expert’ advice – there’s rarely one answer to a problem
  • Use Recovery College Online to promote commercial services
  • Post anything which is racist, homophobic, sexist or transphobic or pejorative about specific mental health conditions
  • Make personal attacks or harass other students or teachers
  • Share personal contact details (this includes links to Facebook or other social media profiles)
  • Swear or use offensive language (including suggested swearing through symbols or images of swear words)
  • Post sexual content or innuendo – this kind of content can be unsafe or upsetting for other users. This includes images and profile pictures.
  • Post or share images about things that could be upsetting for others, for example details of abuse, violence, self harm, or suicide plans.
  • Use private messages inappropriately – e.g. sharing sexual content, soliciting for personal details, or offering crisis support

All posts will be moderated and any user found to be breaking any of the above rules may have their account suspended or deleted.

The Moodle course facilitators will:

  • Respect your confidentiality. What you share here is between you and the Recovery College Online.
  • Review all reports and private messages sent to the our ‘Contact Us’ inbox, and do what we can to help
  • Take your concerns seriously; we want you to feel safe and supported here
  • Where possible, read all posts and comments, and remove anything which breaks the house rules or leaves the community feeling unsafe. We may give you feedback to help you post safely
  • Do our best to resolve any technical problems as quickly as possible

The Moodle course facilitators won’t:

  • Pass on your details or use your information for anything else unless we have your permission
  • Be able to respond to reports or messages from 5pm-9am, when we’re not moderating

Tips on posting safely

The Recovery College Online encourages students to write openly and honestly about their experiences in their personal journals or private portfolios.

If you’re feeling very unsafe, please consider contacting your mental health team, the Samaritans (116 123 / [email protected]), or the emergency services first.

It’s ok to share thoughts and feelings about food, eating and drinking, but please avoid numbers of calories, measurements, amounts of food eaten, images of weight loss or detail about methods of gaining or losing weight.

We know a lot of students might struggle with issues such as addiction or alcohol abuse. It’s fine to seek support, but please do avoid specifics about quantities or details about illegal drug use on this site.

If you feel worried or uncertain, MIND has some information about staying safe online that you might find helpful.

Taking care of your own mental health

If things are tough for you right now, it’s important to think about whether you might need more urgent support or to talk to someone face to face.

Try not to take on too much – extend the same kindness to yourself as to other students.

Take breaks – studying online can be overwhelming, try not to feel under pressure to undertake all the activities within a course in one go.

Think about what you’re comfortable sharing – we would like your input, but sharing too much can leave you feeling vulnerable. You can remove posts or private messages you don’t want to see.

Urgent support – if you’re not feeling safe or it’s all too much, contact the Samaritans (116 123 / [email protected]), call 999 or go to your nearest A&E department. Click on the ‘I need help’ link at the top of the page to help you to explore your options.

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