Template for Officer Reports for Officer Accountability Session
· Please note that you must fill out all sections of this report.
· If there has been no progress on an objective or policy please note this.
· Under the policy section of this report there is a box which asks you to state how you have worked with the relevant part time Officer. You need only fill this in if the policy has been allocated to you and a PTO.
Officer / Equal Opportunities and Welfare Officer – Chloe AverillSession / Session 2
1. Objectives
‘’Work to ensure safer transport in the night time economy’Context (summary) / It is about the work we are doing under the NUS Alcohol Impact project related to the Safer Taxi Scheme initiative. We have secured fixed prices with DG taxis which are very good value and aims at ensuring students don’t walk home alone because of the perception of being overcharged by taxis. The second part of the scheme is the emergency taxi scheme which is where students who have ran out of money can give their student ID number and get home for free, paying the fair the next working day.
Progress to date (summary) / · Have around 1400 students signed up to the fixed price scheme, with 5 iPads given away in week one. – Can’t get numbers of how many times these students are using the scheme but will be evaluating it by talking to students at events, via our insight team and surveys.
· Emergency Taxi Scheme promotional material finished and handed out and page on website finished which allowed us to better promote the Emergency taxi scheme in term one.
· Promoted the scheme well in term one.
Latest Progress / · Emergency taxi scheme cards and leaflets created and handed out to many students
· Emergency taxi scheme added to the Union Website and promoted online.
· Promoted the Safer taxi scheme through the healthyU events held at Portland building and Sutton Bonington, as well as Raleigh Park, SPC and a lot through officer GOATING
· Regarding the Alcohol impact criteria in general, passed a ‘Safer drinking policy’ which mandates the union to research into drinking behaviours and promote appropriate interventions.
· Published high level statement in blog.
· NEW:
· Awarded alcohol impact accreditation by NUS.
· Scheme to be continued next year via Student Living, this will help get the message to students who are not just in first year and also SB, Derby and healthcare students.
· Promotional material adapted and printed for course based society STARS training. Due to budget couldn’t print for every society just yet but hopefully those left over from STARS can go to society training.
· Promotion will go to every single first year student in September as University have agreed to put it in the ‘welcome packs’ that every student has in their room.
Time Scale until students see results / · Promoted successfully in first term, focusing on first year halls, and 2nd and 3rd years through healthyU events and talking to students.
· By moving it over to Student Living, students in satellite sites and living out of university accommodation will see results next year.
· Students still using the scheme, results will be seen until scheme stops running, but no plans in place for that to happen as of yet.
Better training and ongoing relationships with Welfare reps
Context (summary) / · From my campaigning, I noticed that welfare reps didn’t seem to be very well linked to the Students’ Union and they didn’t feel necessarily supported.
· I aimed to give welfare reps better training and have an ongoing relationship with them to ensure they get the support they need.
· Welfare reps to be ‘signposters’ and to come to termly training meetings. Join Forum and Facebook page to promote the welfare services.
Progress to date (summary) / · Created and delivered training programme for JCR and society welfare reps, with members from the union and university giving talks on healthy U, mental health, signposting etc.
· Set up Facebook groups for JCR and society welfare reps to talk on and share information we put on there to their networks.
· Welfare reps to record data confidentially.
· Looking how to make the group be better utilised, currently it is mostly us posting things for them to share and getting limited engagement.
Latest Progress / · Training delivered well, will be getting feedback from that soon.
· Planning a morning in mooch after exams to try and increase engagement and get them talking to each other about what they have been doing regarding welfare.
· Emailed all welfare reps inviting for a one to one chat so I can get to know them as individuals and try and understand how to best serve their needs.
· Planning a Welfare in sports summit to talk to sports clubs presidents and discuss the issue of inclusivity of sports teams and barriers to involvement for some students. Plan of session not finalised but will be working with student minds in the run up.
· Potentially offering it as an accreditation scheme where by teams that attend session, promote mental health services, and volunteer a member as a welfare liason can be accredited.
NEW:
* Held morning in mooch which aimed to help them shape the rest of their year and find out what support they needed. Had 25 people say they were attending but only 7 turned up. Followed up an email to all with outcomes of the session.
* Had one welfare rep successfully run for welfare exec.
* Have evaluation meetings with welfare reps booked in, already had a couple who have stated it would have been better to be able to meet all the welfare reps in a social situation after the training and this would have led to more interaction on facebook pages etc.
*They also stated they felt they didn’t want to put ‘minor problems’ such as catering issues on me as they felt it was too small an issue. I assured them they can come to me with anything but also have looked into setting up a ‘cluster welfare exec’ so that these issues can be passed on through them. I asked the welfare reps for their feedback on this and they stated that they thought it was a good idea.
Time Scale until students see results / · Training happened which was more in depth that previous years so students should have seen results from this better training.
· By end of my year, want the welfare exec committee set up and will sit down with Sarah to make a plan to ensure that my expertise and her fresh insight will help us provide the best support for them.
Continue with Peer Mentoring Scheme
Context (summary) / Continue with Mike Dore and Ruth Edgar’s work on Peer mentoring scheme with the University. Evaluate the different kinds of peer mentoring schemes used in different schools and which work best as some are school led and some are student led. Evaluate this term to roll out more next term.
Progress to date (summary) / · Mike Dore and Ruth Edgar worked with schools and evaluated the different peer mentoring schemes currently available to use as best practice with schools who needed a peer mentoring scheme.
· Peer mentoring scheme running well in many schools and many had their first socials to recruit first years to sign up to the scheme. Most schools very positive result.
· University to ensure every school has peer mentoring scheme in place by the September 2015 intake.
· Been some issues with the university not responding to emails, so progress been slow.
Latest Progress / · Have fortnightlty meetings with Andy O’hara and evaluating how the current societies are doing.
· Met with university, happy that they are to implement peer mentoring on every course, however expressed concerns over the fact these are all due to be school led and we have some very good society led peer mentoring schemes that they will need to be sensitive around.
· Developed a feedback survey for students who are either peer mentors, mentees or don’t have a scheme. Once we have this we can hopefully see the benefit of the society led schemes and have an argument for schools not fully taking over society led schemes (if this is to be the case).
· Very, very hard to meet with the staff members heading this up after numerous emails so extremely hard to make progress, but finally got a meeting booked in the next couple of weeks.
· NEW:
· Survey back and analysed, found out about training, how they found out about schemes, and what they would like to see better done. Will share this report with the university as it may make them actually respond to us.
· Met with Head of Welfare to discuss the issue as was not getting responses, she is to send me a list of the leads that will be in every school so we can give these names to the students so they can start planning schemes with them.
· Any schools without a lead, we will provide the support to those students who want to set up a school
Time Scale until students see results / · Schools with a peer mentoring scheme already will already have seen results, from evaluation will help make changes to make sure they are as good as can be.
· Rest of the schools will see results at the end of the year and start of next year when peer mentoring is mandatory in every school.
Research into mental health provisions at university to find the best route to improve
Context (summary) / Not yet done enough research to be able to identify the best route to go down to improve mental health provision at university. Mike Dore did a survey last year in which the results showed many different areas that needed further research into. I realise in one year tackling all of these would not be the most effective so looking into which area would help most students first.
Progress to date (summary) / Had meetings with member of campaigns and head of welfare to understand more about the services available and the places that needed more help. One area that stands out for needing improving is the accessibility of the counselling service to students that cannot access it via the 9-5 appointments and at University park, eg SB, medics, Derby students. Also students who are scared that by getting help they will be seen as unfit to practice and international students who find the support system in this country different to that of their home country.
Latest Progress / Had meetings with members of campaigns and democracy about how to evaluate the information we currently have and to spot the trends in the data.
Continuing to meet with the head of welfare to discuss next steps and meet with the patient reference group at Cripps to feed back any student information we get.
Waiting to hear from campaigns about the trends in the data to see what next steps we are taking.
NEW:
Analysed the how can we help data and other research we had and found that the route of getting more support for placement students was a viable route to go down.
Met with relevant representatives in SB, Derby, QMC and they were more than happy to help promote what we were doing to be able to get students in for interviews.
Unfortunately, although we pushed really hard and met with both students and staff in schools, the uptake for interviews wasn’t good. We have not been able to conduct any interviews so I am having an emergency ‘What now?’ meeting with a member of the campaigns team to see what we are going to do next to ensure that the work we have done so far does not get lost.
Time Scale until students see results / Currently unsure as I am not 100% sure on what the next steps are. I hope to be able to put plans in place to implement changes for Sarah to help put in place next year. Disappointing that we have not been able to make the changes this year as it is a project I am really passionate about but with the nature of the job just being one year, it is something that I have to plan for now for next year to ensure it still gets done.
2. Remit
Meetings
Meeting / What Happened / The ResultName of Meeting
Safe Taxi Scheme- NUS Alcohol Impact Project / What the role of the meeting is. What was discussed at the meeting
As part of NUS Alcohol impact project, piloting the Safer Taxi Scheme initiative. Latest meetings involved what the plans are for next year and how we can ensure we get the NUS accreditation. / The actions/ wins/ progress that came from the meeting
Safer taxi scheme to be moved to student living to be able to reach a wider range of students. Promotion to go into course based society training and in the university packs that are given to every student. Successfully achieved the alcohol impact accreditation.
Dignity Policy / Discuss the dignity policy as it is not currently student friendly and places a lot more emphasis on staff. / Made all the changes to the dignity policy that we see necessary. Had a meeting booked in with the university staff member who is in charge of the policy but unfortunately this got pushed back due to illness. He is now on annual leave for two weeks so a meeting is planned for the 6th. Very disappointed that we have not had this finalised yet but hopefully that next meeting will give us the heads up. We can then transform to a ‘flow chart’ to make it easier for students to understand where they need to go.
Portland Review / Discuss the development of the new Portland building with the Activities Officer and President. / Attend weekly meetings, keep up to date with progress. Architects have come back with design. President and Activities officer on project management group so I will be updated as and when necessary.