Officer Update: Meeting with Senior Services Staff

Here's what your Officer team discussed in today's regular catch up with Dean of Students, Nuala Devlin and the new Head of Student Development Services, Rumnique Gill.

General Student Support

The Team led a discussion around the number of complex cases we're currently supporting students with alongside the University and how challening some of students' situations are. This led on to the related area of the potential need for early interventions from a "mediation" point of view. For both, there was acknowledgement that the University and Union need to work together to make sure students are supported early on with low-level issues to prevent them escalating

The group also acknowledged last year's lockdown's impact on the social opportunities new students have had and the impact that may have had on their ability to make friends, feel at ease, tackle isolation and understand behavioural and social norms.

What's next?

• The Union and University will use data & Insight to explore complex issues. E.g. Report & Support and Ask Angela joint data sharing
• The Union will review it previous mediation work
• The University will take a review of the agility of processes in place to best support students

The Team's Immediate Goals for Change

The Officers updated Nuala and Rumnique on current priorities that link with the Officers' Team Manifesto and issues that matter to students:

• The University's Sexual Violence Policy
• Sexual Violence Awareness Week (and beyond)
• Active Bystanders Campaign

Active Bystanders

As a relatively new initiative growing from the recent focus on Sexual Violence Awareness Week, and building on work done across Black History Month and from the nation-wide focus on drink spiking, this campaign will focuss on awareness and then look to establish training for individuals. The ultimate goal is help our students to read situations and feel empowered to call out inappropriate behaviour as appropriate (and safe to do so).

Potential Training Opportunity

The Team asked whether Suicide Prevention Training that will soon be offered by Brighter Futures could also be made available to students, student leaders or Union staff.

Rumnique is happy to consider this, but wants to understand the training that the University has access to in greater detail before committing to a definite yes. This is something to pick up in a later meeting with Hayden & Hannah as Rumnique was aware of different University teams delivering different training to various staff and wants us to be consistent in our approach to ensure equality of opportunity and balance across the University. Nuala was also very keen to take a shared approach across all Universty Teams, Students and The Union.

Your Officers also updated Nuala on our implementation of Welfare Officers across Student Groups, which will be available to stand for in The Leadership Race soon!

What's Next?

• The University will set up a Sexual Violence policy meeting with Hannah and Hayden to update on progress and/or resume work
• The University will meet across various teams to review the current mental health support training offer

New Working Groups

The Union wants to drive connection between University teams in order to improve experiences for students, so the Officer Team will be creating two new working groups that will enhance activity for our students:

Student Experience at London

Campus Vibrancy Team (Stoke)

These groups will pull in various staff from across relevant University Teams, as well as student feedback, to best understand people's expectations and tailor activity and services offers as appropriate.

Varsity

The Team updated the kay dates and information on the year's biggest sporting event, noting the brand new shared hosting approach. In order to boost support, the Officers would love to have more staff present as well as students. Your Officers agreed to share the full Varsity schedule with Rumnique and Nuala as they are keen to attend if they can!

Update: Nuala Meeting with Network & Department Reps

You may have read the recent update on a meeting that some of your other Student Leaders had with Nuala, and so she provided the Officer Team with an update.

There will be a campus tour with the Disabled Network members to complete an informal audit of accessibility as a "day in the life of..." some of our disabled students. This is something that the Vice Chancellor has asked for a report on, as he's also focussed on accessibility and inclusivity.

Jo Blaiklock (the Head of Student Support & Wellbeing) has connected with our Department Rep, Kat to implement further support for those students who were struggling with the challenging demands of their placements.