Community Officer Blog

Hey everyone!

My time as Community Officer is coming to an end, so I thought it would be good to reflect on what a year it’s been!

I was elected to this role on the basis of my manifesto points which I pledged to work towards during my time as Community Officer. Here’s an update on each of my manifesto points and which I have completed this year!

 

Male Mental Health Campaign: Normalising discussions around male mental health to reduce stigma, ultimately to encourage male students to access support when needed

• For World Mental Health Day, myself and Student Minds organised a male mental health discussion event.
• Following this, I requested for a Male Mental Health Working Group to be introduced at the university, including university staff and student representation, allowing us to enact some of the ideas discussed at the meeting.
• This working group has coordinated setting up a male mental health peer support scheme, which is due to launch in September!
• A huge thank you to Student Minds for their fantastic contributions to this project!

 

Improve the Be Well Talk Now Service: Amplifying student voice by using feedback from all groups of students, so the service is more widely accessed, and advisors understand the range of issues faced at Bath specifically.

• Earlier in my Officer year, I met with the Director of Student Services to discuss the Be Well Talk Now service.
• I learnt that there is a feedback system currently in place and the feedback received from students who have accessed the service has been very positive.
• However, it was clear that certain demographics of students are less likely to access the service, which is something being addressed in other work by Student Services e.g. male mental health work.

 

Student Support Signposting: It’s easy to forget about support available when you’re studying remotely, so I will create a clear mental health signposting tool, allowing you to easily find relevant support.

• Throughout the year, I have worked directly with the university to create and publish a webpage providing information about all the services available to students experiencing any difficulties.
• This webpage is now published and can be viewed here! I’m hoping it’ll be useful for students to find support and for staff members to use to appropriately signpost students.

 

Regular Meet-Ups: Ensuring you can meet students outside your household through a calendar of regular, varied activities, whether virtually or in-person (recreating some of the events of FW20!).

• Throughout the year, The SU has organised a huge number of events which it has been amazing to see students enjoying!
• I set up some events myself to help students meet others, including weekly Morning Mixers, Park Run events, and runs during Study Well week!

 

Placement Matching System: Placement can be incredibly isolating, so I plan to work with the Education Officer to create a system which allows you to connect with other placement students near you.

• At the start of my Officer year, I met with university staff members to discuss how to secure funding for a map of where all current placement students are.
• More recently, this funding was secured, and the placement student map is due to be launched soon!
• I have also been working with SU staff members on editing our SU webpages to provide information on how to be a part of The SU if you are not in Bath.

 

Improve Welfare Support for D&S Groups: Assigning a relevant wellbeing advisor to each D&S group as external welfare support.

• This year the Wellbeing team in Student Services have been busier than ever, so I felt that it wasn’t the right time to assign a Wellbeing Advisor to each D&S group.
• As an alternative, this year, I invited a staff member from Student Services to join Diversity & Support Executive Committee Meetings, allowing them to gain a better understanding of how our D&S groups work.

• I have also encouraged D&S groups to share ideas on how to manage boundaries when welfare issues come up within their groups.

 

Website Signposting: Create one page advertising all SU groups so D&S groups get equal membership and engagement to sports and societies.

• Earlier this year, all our SU groups were added to one webpage for students to browse – this can be found here!

 

Normalise Specifying Pronouns: Adding an option for pronouns in university account names, including Zoom usernames, to encourage pronoun sharing.

• With Zoom lectures being a lot less frequent this year, we focussed on improving pronoun specifying in in-person areas.
• This included adding pronouns to Officer lanyards, name stickers for SUmmit members, and encouraging students to collect pronoun badges from 4W Helpdesk. 

 

Inclusivity Training: Introduce mandatory inclusivity training for all student group committees, particularly around accessibility for disabled students.

• We’ve developed an inclusivity training session which I’ve delivered to Freshers’ Week captains, incoming SU Officers, and any student groups who requested this training.
• I also recently delivered this as a session for incoming student group committees to attend at the recent Student Leader conference.
• As well as this, I have redesigned a more longevity-focussed Inclusivity Award, which we opened up to all student leaders for the first time! You can find out how the award worked here!
• Coordinating the Inclusivity Award involved developed inclusivity training resources and drop-in sessions, as well as assessing submissions.
• 22 student leader groups completed amazing work as part of the Inclusivity Award, which you can read about here!
• We haven’t yet made inclusivity training mandatory, but I’m hoping this work is continued in future years.

 

Individualised Rent Rebates: Lobby for extended rent rebates which consider each individual student’s circumstances, including uncertainty around restrictions

• Thankfully, we haven’t been in lockdown this academic year, so this manifesto point wasn’t relevant!

 

Uni Guarantor Scheme: Too many international students are paying full rent upfront, so I want to improve the advertisement of the uni guarantor scheme and push to reduce its fees.

• I spoke to the University about the guarantor scheme and hadn’t realised that the University advertise a number of external companies who provide a guarantor. As these companies are external, the University does not determine the fees required.
• The University don’t receive any fees or benefits from these companies, they only advertise these services as they believe they are the best guarantor services available.

 

Regular International Student Meet-Ups: Taking different time-zones into consideration to organise meet-ups specifically for international students

• Unfortunately, our International Exec hasn’t been as active as I’d have liked this year, so it has been difficult to gain international student input on what social events they’d like.
• We’re currently looking into how to improve the engagement at International Exec for the upcoming year, which will allow us to develop work around international students more.
• We have identified and developed an amazing on-campus space, on the ground floor of Esther Parkin, which we intend to use for international student group socials in the upcoming academic year!

 

Increasing Financial Support: Working with the ISA to push for increased Bath bursary funds available to international students

• The Bath Bursary is granted on the basis of household income (amongst other factors) which is difficult to verify for international students, as it is done through HMRC.
• Instead, the University offer a number of other scholarships to this cohort, including international scholarships in the form of a partial tuition fee waiver of £2000. 40% of international students received this scholarship in 2021.

 

Improve Awareness of Abuse: I want to ensure the revamped campaign includes focus on unhealthy relationships, recognising the signs of abuse and toxicity in relationships and friendships

• Earlier this year, a student coordinated a campaign for 16 Days of Activism which was amazing to see!
• I worked with Bath Time on an idea for an article to raise awareness around unhealthy relationships, although we didn’t receive many submissions, so we didn’t follow through with this article.
• This year, I have also been a part of an anti-sexual violence group with representatives from Bristol, Bath Spa, and UWE.
• Honestly, I haven’t done as much work in this area as I’d have liked to – the male mental health campaign was the focus from Student Services, so there wasn’t much resource or capacity for another campaign, which is a shame!

 

I’ve done a lot of work outside of my manifesto, so I’ve written another blog about any other important projects and work I’ve done. If you want to have a read, click here!

I’ve had the best time as Community Officer and have gained some fantastic experience! A huge thank you each and every student and staff member who has helped me along the way. None of the projects I’ve taken on this year would have been at all possible without your help.