Thursday 28-06-2018 - 13:42

I can’t quite believe I’m sitting down to write this and that my year is over already, but it’s nearly time to say goodbye to Durham SU. I feel so lucky to have been able to be your Welfare and Liberation Officer this past year. Like many people, for the majority of my time as an undergrad in Durham, I hadn’t had a huge amount to do with Durham SU, until my close friend became an officer, and until, as Nightline Director, I turned to the SU in search of somewhere supportive – somewhere that understood students and what they needed – where I could rehome the service. It was through this involvement that I began to notice the ways in which Durham SU stood up for students and – inspired by the endless possibilities of a union’s positive impact – I decided to run to be an officer myself. And what a great decision that one was. For the past year, I’ve had the privilege of seeing, up close, the positive impact we can make when we stand together as a collective.

So, in my final week, and whilst I delay for as long as possible the gloomy task of clearing my desk, I thought I’d take a few minutes to write about my highlights and happiest moments of this year, and, for good measure, a reflection or two of what it’s been like to be an officer.

If you’ve had so much as a five minute conversation with me in the past year, you probably haven’t managed to escape without hearing me talk about making student support at Durham outstanding – sorry (not sorry). Earlier this year, I released a video highlighting the University’s lack of attention to support and wellbeing. Despite the University’s ambitions to be a world-class university for education, research and student experience, their 10-year strategy, alarmingly, failed to mention support or wellbeing once. This year, we’ve come a long way in changing this culture: the University now, for the first time, has a Director of Student Support and Wellbeing, reflecting a positive change in institutional priorities; the University is working with us to refresh its Wider Student Experience strategy to include a focus on support and wellbeing; and there are plans to develop a pan-university strategy for the support of student mental health in 2018/19. Things are changing.

I think the HE sector – and the education system more broadly – has found itself at a juncture when it comes to student support, and where we go from this point will be absolutely critical. Earlier this year, I did my own little bit to express this, and had the opportunity to speak at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Student Mental Health about my concerns surrounding a deferral of collective responsibility for student wellbeing, and my fears about shifting all responsibility onto the individual.

As part of my work on making Durham’s support outstanding, I’ve spent lots of this year doing research on both peer support and our professional support services. Research has ranged from spreadsheets, surveys and forums, to the less conventional (but definitely very enjoyable) 27 cups of tea with Welfare Officers, all of which has come together to form our student vision on support and wellbeing. I hope that, in the coming years, this vision will help us articulate what students need and help us to make sure that our university is a place where everyone can thrive. A (long!) report covering all this research and its outcomes is coming soon, so keep an eye out; we’re just working on the finishing touches!

My favourite outcome of this research is no secret, and I hope is the start of something really special. Last week, I had the privilege of spending three days in Berwick-upon-Tweed on our inaugural peer supporter residential, with Welfare Officers across associations and colleges. My research identified a real lack of training and support for our peer supporters, and that we needed to do more to support the people who support so many others to feel confident and be effective in their difficult roles – so off to Berwick it was! We were lucky enough to be joined by two professional trainers, and it was an opportunity for our Welfare Officers to improve their peer support skills, get to know one another, form a network which they can use to support each other over the coming year, learn about planning collaborative campaigns and discuss how to approach difficult scenarios. Ever since I’d got involved in welfare at Durham, I’d wished something like this existed, so watching it come together – and watching how open and receptive the Welfare Officers were to the training – was without any doubt at all one of my happiest moments of this past year.

In April, the University accepted my proposal for the piloting of a rent guarantor scheme, which will be available sometime in the near future to both international students and UK students in exceptional circumstances. Just a year ago, the University had told us that it wouldn’t be possible for the University to act as a rent guarantor, but we didn’t give up and for me, this is a pretty beautiful reminder of the real meaningful change we can make through our collective power as a union. I know this will make a real difference for the students who need it most.

On the subject of housing and collective power – we’ve got a tenants’ union! I can’t understate how much I think Durham has needed something like this. I got to meet some truly amazing students in setting this up, and with all the challenges that face our city in the near future, I can’t wait to see what they’ll do – I’ll definitely be peeking back every now and again, from afar!

In June, we launched Pincident, which I’ve spent my year working on, with the support of the University’s Sexual Violence and Misconduct Operations Group, the Cohesion Team of Durham Constabulary and Durham County Council. If you’ve managed to miss the giant pins wandering around Durham, Pincident is an online mapping tool where people can record their experiences of violence, assault, discrimination and harassment, as well as bystander intervention. It gives a platform to people to share their experiences (which might act as a stepping stone to seeking support or reporting officially); it helps us to promote bystander intervention; it raises awareness of the prevalence of the problem; and it helps us to understand the patterns of these behaviours, so we can work together to make Durham a safer place. Since its launch, Pincident has had lots of positive attention, and over 60 incidents have been logged on the tool. A couple of weeks ago, I presented the tool to the Council’s City Safety Group, and there was lots of enthusiasm for how we can work closely together to develop the tool further.

We’ve seen Assembly ratify three new Associations in the last year – the Women’s Association, the Trans Association, and the Working Class Students’ Association, which is very exciting. Our brand new Trans Association, led by Luke Armitage, has already had some incredible national success – winning not just NUS LGBT+ Society Development of the year, but also Trans Campaign of the Year at NUS Trans Students’ Conference. Incredible!

This year I’ve also worked closely with our Islamic Society and the University on the design and delivery of a temporary prayer facility. This has been long overdue – and there’s still a long way further to go on this in the future – but I’m really pleased that the desperately needed facility should be finished any day now…

Not something I can describe as one of my happiest moments this year, but this role meant I heard some horrifying stories of what students had endured in initiation/hazing ceremonies, particularly within Team Durham sports teams. A few months ago, Palatinate exposed some of this, and I’ve been vocal in criticising the University’s approach to tackling this pervasive, underground culture. I maintain that the University will only begin to truly break this harmful cycle when it commits to properly supporting, actively encouraging and protecting whistleblowers. I do think we’ve made progress on this, but we’re not where we should be, and I really hope the University will heed calls on this and properly, bravely address this issue.

Some of the best bits of this role haven’t been specific campaigns – the opportunity to spend time celebrating students’ achievements at graduations, and welcoming students to the city and University at matriculations will definitely be some of the most memorable experiences.

Being a student representative, and in particular, a woman, hasn’t always been easy. I’ve raised some of these concerns with the Vice Chancellor and other senior staff members in the University in the last few weeks, and it wasn’t easy, but I’m glad to have done. I’ve often felt de-legitimised, belittled and made to seem naïve. The University has a long way to go. It has a long way to go in engaging with student representatives raising constructive criticism and living by its own values and characteristics: in particular, being challenging, rigorous, innovative, welcoming and inclusive. Some things we’ve raised this year (like the issue of counsellors of colour, which our People of Colour Association raised brilliantly in a university meetingearlier this year) have been shut down too quickly. As student representatives, we want to make Durham a better, fairer and more inclusive place for all students, so at points, the lack of willingness to engage positively and constructively in conversations which could genuinely make our university better has been demoralising and frustrating.

I’ve experienced something similar over the last nine months, with my calls to add student representation to individual Fitness to Study case reviews. The Fitness to Study policy is one designed to apply in circumstances where there are concerns about a student’s capacity to engage in their studies, maintain their own safety or reside in college communities without adversely impacting others. There’s understandably a lot of anxiety amongst students surrounding this policy, and student representation is absolutely vital to ensure that it is being used fairly. Given the huge implications this policy can have on students, it’s been frustrating that it’s come so low down the University’s priority list that it has been ignored for nine months. Happily though, progress is hopefully coming. I raised the issue in Senate last week, and the issue is being sent back to Education Committee for consideration, but it sounds positive, so watch this space!

So, thank you for giving me the opportunity to represent you this year, it’s honestly been an experience I’ll never forget. In the good bits – where we’ve come together as a group of students who care about making the future better – we’ve really needed a union. And in the bad bits – where the University has been resistant to change, or failed to engage properly with student representatives to understand properly what students want and need – we’ve really needed a union. And thank goodness we’ve had one.