In everyday language, a crisis usually refers to a new, unanticipated situation that creates uncertainty or casts doubts in general as to whether the situation can be dealt with. An unanticipated situation that shocks a person, threatening or undermining their sense of security and their feeling that they can manage, may trigger a mental readjustment process, that is, a psychological crisis. A person with access to needed support and resources can get through a psychological crisis, and after dealing with it, life can return to a state of relatively stability.
The student years are for many people a special time in life. Crises encountered during that time may have a very strong, if brief, effect on their everyday life and studies. The student in that situation may need a variety of support for dealing with the crisis and getting their life back to normal. As a member of staff, you are not responsible for treating a student in a crisis or trying to resolve their situation. Operating within the limits of your own work role is enough, and referring the student to where they can receive other help.
These guidelines refer to three types of crisis situations affecting students:
A crisis affecting an individual student's own study and work abilities generally does not affect more students and is therefore not a collective crisis.
Crises involving life situations: A major change, such as moving to live on one’s own, the end of an intimate relationship, the death of a loved one, a serious illness or unexpected financial problems.
Traumatic crises: The student (or a close relationship) falling victim to a serious crime or accident, or witnessing such a situation befalling another, or experiencing a sudden and overwhelming loss. Although the student may say they managed to get by ‘with only scratches’, a trauma once experienced may easily resurface.
How to respond in your role as a teacher or advisor?
If you have suspicions that a student is having self-destructive ideation, try to calm down yourself first. If the suspicion is based on the student's writing in a message or assignment, the urgency of the situation is usually low enough to allow you time to consider how to proceed or to consult with your supervisor, for example. If the suspicion arises in a discussion where you are advising the student, you can try to ask about the matter directly and refer the student forward. It is safe and recommended to ask about suicidal thoughts directly; talking about suicidal thoughts does not increase the risk of committing suicide.
The most important thing in such situations is to underline that help is available and to refer the student forward for more help. If the situation comes up suddenly, you may forget to refer the student; in that case, you should return to the matter later in a confidential manner.
As soon as possible, please inform your supervisor and the school’s Manager of Academic Affairs about what happened or about your concern.
Some rules of thumb for acting in such situations:
More information is available below.
It is very rare, but possible, that you may encounter a student who is in an acutely self-destructive state of mind, that is, there is a risk the student may attempt suicide immediately. In such an emergency, proceed as follows:
In the following, we discuss crises of the individual that can become crises affecting many members of the community. In crises of this kind involving students, the responsibility for operations and for organising crisis support lies generally with the school's manager of academic affairs.
The sudden death of an Aalto student or staff member is a jarring incident for those who knew the deceased, and it may also raise many kinds of thoughts and feelings even among those who didn’t know the deceased personally. A sudden death often causes a collective crisis. At such times, crisis support for the community is needed.
Important to inform the manager of academic affairs:
The school’s manager of academic affairs also makes the decision about organising crisis support. The manager consults with ´¡²¹±ô³Ù´Ç’s psychologist group responsible for collective crisis support. The psychologists can arrange crisis discussions with the group of students together in cooperation with Aalto chaplains.
Aalto has comprehensive instructions on how to act if a student or employee dies:
Guidelines for staff in the event of a student’s death | Aalto University
A serious close call experienced by a student refers to an incident on campus or in studies where the student’s health or life had been at serious risk, but they managed to ‘dodge the bullet'. These may include a hazardous situation in a laboratory or in traffic on the campus grounds.
The situation may trigger a psychological crisis in one or more individuals. In these, the mind attempts to deal with the incident through catastrophic thinking or speculating about what might have occurred. This may expand to a collective crisis if others eye-witnessed the scene or identified strongly with it through another’s report (‘this might have happened to me’ or ‘to us’).
The risk that the situation will cause later fear or avoidance behaviour may be reduced if the affected student(s) are offered opportunities to talk through what occurred. Many students may feel that they do not need support in a situations that were merely close calls. There are not always symptoms of a psychological crisis. However, some reactions may be delayed and arise after several days or weeks have passed. Therefore, it is important to tell all affected students and parties that crisis help is available, giving the same information in writing (via email) regardless of their immediate response to the situation.
How to respond in your role as a teacher or advisor?
This generally means to either an individual incident or series of incidents arising during teaching or in the campus area in which an individual’s behaviour raises concerns, fears or uncertainty. This may turn into a collective crisisif, for example, the individual is a student and known to the group, or if there is a threat of violence. It should be noted that threats of violence to a community can generally always be regarded as a collective crisis.
Procedures when encountering a threatening individual are available in ´¡²¹±ô³Ù´Ç’s security guidelines. In a threatening situation, your first priority is to ensure your own safety and that of others; call for help when it is possible to do so. See /en/security#8-procedures-in-case-of-encountering-a-threatening-individual
In most cases, situations that raise concerns, fears or uncertainty do not appear at once as clear threats; instead, members of the community notice disquieting signs over a longer period of time. Such latent or smouldering crises may also affect relations within the community. It is therefore important to take any concerns expressed by other students seriously and try as soon as possible to get to the bottom of the matter between the students and the individual who is causing the concern.
How to respond in your role as a teacher or advisor?
The Aalto community does not accept any form of inappropriate conduct, bullying or harassment. Students who have been, or suspect that they have been, subject to inappropriate conduct or harassment can go to the link below to find procedures for situations that occurred in the context of the university or that involved members of the Aalto community.
Support in cases of harassment | Aalto University and Instructions for investigating suspected cases of misconduct and disruptions of student learning | Aalto University
Psychological crises caused by bullying or harassment
As all situations of conflict and discord are not necessarily related to bullying or harassment, it may sometimes be useful to resolve the situation through mediation. Aalto University also offers mediation for conflicts between students (however, not for conflicts occurring during free time): /en/applications-instructions-and-guidelines/instructions-for-investigating-suspected-cases-of-misconduct-and-disruptions-of-student-learning#12-4-other-possible-measures---mediation
The student crises presented above are individual-level crises that are not automatically collective crises, but may escalate and become so. In the following, we discuss crises that should be regarded as collective crises right from the start. Crises at the collective level occurring in an Aalto school and affecting students are led generally by the manager of academic affairs or their designee.
Generally speaking, the situation is always a collective crisis in the case where the person who died was an active member of the community and suicide or crime is suspected or the case attracts media attention (e.g. the deceased was a public figure or a missing person subject to extensive search operations). In such cases, it is always important to offer crisis support to students.
See the section ‘Sudden death of a member of the community’
Serious threats to any specific community among Aalto, are, in principle, collective crises, and therefore the need for collective crisis support must be ascertained under the direction of the manager of academic affairs.
See section ‘Member of the community whose behaviour raises concern, fears or uncertainty`.
Accidents in an Aalto school context are, in principle, a collective crises, and therefore the need for collective crisis support must be determined. The guidelines in the section Serious close-calls on campus or in studies may apply to these situations.
If the mishap results in fatalities and/or serious injury or may otherwise be considered a major accident, it is a collective crisis affecting Aalto University as a whole.
Bullying or harassment that is long-term or widespread can often become a collective crisis; it is then important to determine students’ need for collective crisis support.
See the ‘Bullying and harassment’ section.
As a university, Aalto is highly international. When major catastrophes, natural disasters (earthquake, tsunami), terror attacks, or outbreaks of violent or military conflict occur, they can impact some members of the Aalto community directly or indirectly. They may involve the Aalto member in a physical or concrete sense (e.g. individuals present at the scene) and/or psychologically (e.g. individuals from the country or region in question).
HR services (HR) and Learning Services (LES) have a model for how to act in such crises. The model seeks to identify and attempt to reach the Aalto members who are affected by the situation. If you contact such members, send information regarding what psychological symptoms a crisis may cause, when they should seek help, and where they can find crisis support. You can download the instructions at the bottom of the page. Contact is usually made based on the member’s nationality or presumed location. However, a crisis may also impact Aalto members who cannot be reached according to these criteria. Some crises may affect at some level a very large part of the community, if not everyone (e.g. the outbreak of the war in Ukraine), and they may have a more personal impact on some than on others.
Occupational health, the Aalto chaplains, HR, and the psychology group in charge of collective crises may organise discussion sessions for members of the community, if necessary.
How to respond in your role as a teacher or advisor?
Crises occurring in or aimed at Finland, including major accidents, deadly natural disasters, pandemics and terror attacks, may indirectly affect a great many or even a majority of members of the Aalto community, making it necessary for the community to process and talk through the incident with others. The need to process a collective psychological crisis depends on how unexpected the incident was, its duration, extent and effects. This need is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. ´¡²¹±ô³Ù´Ç’s Crisis Management Team (CMT) manages the activities related to these kinds of crises.
It is important to note that if a member of the Aalto community is the victim of a crisis of this level (e.g. if a student at Aalto died in a major accident occurring elsewhere in Finland), then the situation must be managed separately as a collective crisis, since its effects directly affect some members of the Aalto community.
How to respond in your role as a teacher or advisor?
A student may need a more personal form of crisis support if the crisis affects them directly, for example, if the victim was someone close to them. In such cases, guide the student to the support services as necessary.
Although traumatic crises directly involving the university are very rare, they have the potential to impact a great many or even all members of the Aalto community. Therefore, they can cause psychological crises in individuals and in the community and make it necessary to talk through and deal with the effects of the incident. The need for such processing of a collective psychological crisis depends on how unexpected the incident was, its duration, extent and effects. The need for collective crisis support is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
´¡²¹±ô³Ù´Ç’s Crisis Management Team (CMT) together with the authorities are responsible for managing crises of this scale, and the community is informed of the crisis guidelines.
Here you find how you can report accidents at work, near misses or if you have noticed anything in our operations that deviates from our plans and agreements. It is important to report these deviations so that similar situations can be avoided in the future.
The Starting Point of Wellbeing offers students easy access to counselling and advice on matters of well-being and study ability. The services available to you include drop-in (no reservation) advising/counselling sessions, peer support groups, and online materials. You can also make an appointment to receive individual counselling.
The Aalto University study psychologists work in the Student Services, while a career counselling psychologist is available at the Career Design Lab.
Information about the services, personnel, and materials that form Aalto's comprehensive guidance system.
The following are guidelines for staff when a student dies and for the crisis management of fatalities.
