Know Your Role. Know Your Limits.

Welcome to SAFE CAREModule 1 · Roles and LimitsReceive and Prepare

By the end of this module, you can: identify what your role can do, recognize what is outside your role, call the right help, and keep responsibility clear until another person accepts it.

Approximately 12–18 minutesKnow → Act → Call → Confirm

Why roles and limits matter

A campus crisis may involve students, student staff, faculty, professional staff, emergency responders, clinicians, advocates, and other specialists. Each person has a different job.

Your role tells you:

• what you are expected to do;
• what decisions you are allowed to make;
• when you must call another person or service;
• what work remains yours after help arrives.

Staying within your role does not mean doing nothing. It means taking the actions you are trained and authorized to take, calling for help when the situation requires more, and not abandoning unfinished responsibilities.

Emergency help

Danger? Call 911 or your campus emergency route

Call immediately for a life-threatening medical emergency, active violence, a weapon, fire, unresponsiveness, a recent suicide attempt, immediate suicide danger, or another emergency defined by your campus. Do not wait for a routine supervisor call when delay could cause serious harm.

Campus roles

Stay within your role

Students and peers

What they do: report what they saw or heard, stay with someone when it is safe and appropriate, call for help, and share direct facts.

Limits: they do not diagnose, investigate, search rooms, promise secrecy, physically intervene, or take responsibility for managing a crisis alone.

Stay within your role

Student staff

What they do: recognize warning signs, follow emergency and on-call procedures, provide basic support within training, protect the area when permitted, notify professional staff, and document required facts.

Limits: they do not provide clinical assessment, conduct investigations, use authority they do not have, or remain the only person responsible for a serious crisis.

Do this

Faculty and general staff

What they do: listen, ask direct questions allowed by campus guidance, report urgent concerns, contact the designated response route, and maintain reasonable connection until help is arranged.

Limits: they do not become counselors, determine clinical risk on their own, or treat sending a resource link as a completed response.

Do this

Professional campus staff

What they do: assess the operational situation, choose approved response routes, coordinate departments, support affected people, make required notifications, and manage follow-up within their authority.

Limits: they do not replace police, EMS, clinicians, advocates, legal authorities, or other specialists.

Pass forward

Emergency and specialized responders

What they do: accept specific work under their professional authority, such as emergency medical care, scene safety, clinical assessment, advocacy, or specialized support.

Limits: their arrival does not automatically complete housing, academic, supervisory, documentation, or follow-up responsibilities.

What happens when people leave their role?

Going outside your role can:

• delay the help that is actually needed;
• create danger for you or others;
• produce incorrect information or promises;
• interfere with emergency, clinical, or investigative work;
• leave important tasks without a clear owner;
• create policy, privacy, documentation, or legal problems.

The goal is not to do everything. The goal is to do your part fully and bring in the people who can do the rest.

Four steps for working within your role

Know→Act→Call→Confirm

1

Know

Know what your role can do

Use your training, job duties, and campus procedures. Being the first person present does not give you more authority.

Result: You know which actions are yours and which are not.

2

Act

Do the part that belongs to you

Take permitted safety steps, communicate direct facts, support the person within your training, and follow required notification procedures.

Result: Your assigned work is underway.

3

Call

Bring in the help you cannot provide

Use 911, an on-call professional, a crisis service, police, EMS, a clinician, an advocate, or another approved campus resource when the situation is beyond your role.

Result: The missing help has been contacted through the correct route.

4

Confirm

Confirm who is doing what

Do not assume everything transferred because someone arrived or a referral was sent. Confirm what the next person accepted and what still remains yours.

Result: Every important task has a clear owner.

Knowledge Check

Practice question

You receive a message about possible immediate danger

A resident shows you a text from their roommate: “I took everything. I do not want to wake up.” The roommate may be in their campus room, but no one has seen them for an hour. You are a student staff member, and your supervisor normally receives after-hours concerns.

What should you do first?

Wait for the supervisorUse the normal reporting chain before doing anything else.Call the emergency routeReport the exact message, the location, and what is still unknown. Then make the required supervisor notification.Investigate aloneEnter the room, look for medication, and decide whether the message was serious.

Work the scenario

New information

The resident says the message was probably dramatic

The resident asks you not to call anyone. You still cannot see or speak with the roommate.

What should you do?

Call the emergency routeReport the exact message, the unknown condition, and the lack of contact. Follow local access and notification procedures.Accept the explanationTreat the resident’s opinion as enough to end the concern.Promise a quiet checkAgree not to notify anyone if the resident helps you enter the room.

Help has arrived

Police and EMS take over specific tasks

EMS accepts the medical evaluation. Police manage access to the room. The resident is distressed in the hallway, your supervisor has not been updated, and the required incident record has not been started.

What responsibility still belongs to you?

NothingLeave because emergency responders now own the entire situation.Direct police and EMSContinue controlling their work because you made the original call.Complete the remaining campus tasksConfirm what police and EMS accepted, notify your supervisor, support the resident within your role, and complete the required record.

Role Checklist

Use this during a response

Before you step away, confirm these four things

My role

What am I trained, assigned, and allowed to do?

My action

What part of the response belongs to me right now?

Help called

What needed capability did I contact, and through which approved route?

Responsibility confirmed

What did the next person accept, and what still remains mine?

Your role is clear when

you know what you can do, take the actions assigned to you, call the right help, and confirm who owns every remaining task.

Stop and check again when

the danger changes, the person moves, help is delayed, a responder leaves, a plan fails, new information appears, or any important task has no clear owner.

Knowledge Check

New situation

A student makes an alarming statement after class

A student tells a faculty member, “Sometimes I think everyone would be better off without me,” and says they must leave for work. The faculty member is not a clinician and does not know whether there is immediate danger.

What should the faculty member do?

Provide counselingKeep the student for an hour and decide whether the thoughts are clinically serious.Ask, stay connected, and call the approved routeAsk direct safety questions allowed by campus guidance, use emergency help if needed, and contact the designated campus response while maintaining reasonable connection.Send a resource linkEmail counseling information and consider the concern handled.

Learn your campus rules

Stay within your role

Every campus is different

Your campus decides who to call, what questions each role may ask, when emergency services must be used, who may enter rooms, who may transport someone, what must be reported, how incidents are documented, and when responsibility has officially transferred.

Before using SAFE CARE, know where to find your campus emergency procedures, after-hours contacts, role descriptions, reporting requirements, and specialized support services.

Final Knowledge Check

Final question

Choose the best role-based response

Which statement best summarizes how to stay within your role?

Know, act, call, and confirmKnow what your role can do, act within it, call the help you cannot provide, and confirm who owns what remains.Wait for permission before actingDo nothing until a supervisor or specialist gives you detailed instructions.Stay in charge until everything endsKeep control of every task because you were the first person involved.

Next · Module 2

Receive and Prepare

Learn how to receive an incomplete concern, identify what cannot wait, and prepare the first safe response.

Continue to Receive and Prepare →