The Manifesto Review DPW

It is hard to believe that I am over half way into my term as Deputy President (Welfare), elections still only feel like they were last month! Following on from Paul’s article last week I am doing a manifesto review, but also talking about all of the other projects I have been involved in that I hadn’t even dreamt up at the point of writing mymanifesto. It has been a whirlwind so far and I have genuinely really enjoyed the job. Whilst doing my degree I was constantly counting down to the weekend with the general feeling of WHAT IT’S ONLY TUESDAY?!? This year Friday always seems to appear out of nowhere with all of the meetings I have to go to and the projects I’m working on. It is hard to know if the role has involved what I thought it would when I started out, I really enjoy the mix of representing students on welfare related committees and also having time to peruse welfare campaigns and projects working with Union staff. I would have to say that the role is more varied than I ever imagined, which is a huge positive from my point of view. The biggest learning experience for me has definitely been having patience and realising that I can’t make things happen alone. When starting a new project you often need help and support from other staff, other sabbaticals and College departments; and your priorities hardly ever match. That said, I will do a manifesto review and then a brief overview of some of the other things I have been involved with over the past year.

Below are the main points from my manifesto:

“There needs to be an effective feedback mechanism regarding personal tutors”

This is a point that I am finally getting to work on! The way I envisage this working is to have something akin to a personal tutor logging system. This is an ICT based project that the ICT department can’t begin until the previous project is finished. The current ICT project is developing a new survey platform, which is hopefully coming to an end soon. I will be putting my proposals for this system to a board in a few weeks time. I am pushing for your personal tutor to be aware of your exam and coursework marks also within this system. This hopefully means your personal tutors will be more aware of your general progress and both senior tutors and personal tutors will be able to step in to help much earlier when problems arise. I also want to tie this in with improved personal tutor training to ensure your personal tutor can effectively and sensitively support you and signpost you to college services.

“I think there also needs to be a more uniform peer support service from department to department. Some faculties have buddy systems; I think there needs to be a robust model rolled out throughout College.”

The mums and dads system has been a joint project between myself and Doug Hunt. There are challenges; however the uptake has been better this year than previous year. I still believe that a centralised Union allocation system is the way forwards. This year, we held a mums and dads event called The Great SOCOFF in November, and we are planning for this to happen in the first fortnight next year. We are holding another night in March which will be bigger and better than the last one – more to follow on this soon. We are going to deliver better training to departmental societies so that they can provide better mums and dads events. We also hope to lobby departments to give more support to the mums and dads system meaning that going forwards it can be more effective. It was never going to be perfect in one year, but we are moving in the right direction.

“I will campaign to further increase the resources of the Student Counselling Service”

This is of course a case of working jointly with/lobbying College. In the past year the counselling service has expanded, with the hope that another counsellor will be appointed soon bringing us in line with the national average. How this support is communicated to students still needs to be improved and is something I am definitely working on. I am also lobbying to provide increased support hours outside of the College day for all of the College welfare provisions. When you are stressed and down about work, the last thing you need is to miss lectures or labs. Hopefully by next year, the Counselling Service, the Disabilities Advisory Service and the Health Centre will all be increasing their out of hours provision without cutting any existing hours.

“Increased bike storage around College”

Over summer the amount of bike storage available in Beit Quad was doubled. Further long term solutions to bike storage need to be investigated by the College.

Now, here is a quick overview of all the other projects that I am currently involved with.

• Mental Health Campaign Planning – working on developing a campaign group of students to carry out mental health campaigns. I am also working with other London based Welfare Sabbs to hopefully carry out a London wide campaign.

• Developing a Green Network as a launch pad for green campaigns and initiatives – much more to come on this soon. Watch this space.

• New student led campaigns, no need to write much about this here, turn to the Union page in Felix (page 17) to find out more about this!

• Exam stress – this will be a big campaign in the summer term where the Union will be trying to find quick innovative ways for students to take little breaks and distress during revision period.

• Unseen Imperial – campaigns about underrepresented student groups at Imperial. This also focuses on destigmatising mental health.

• Student Experience Survey – along with a team of staff I am currently analysing the data, and reading every single one of your free text comments. Keep a look out for the report, which will be appearing over the next few months.

• Pop up STI clinics in the Union. This will hopefully happen over the next few months.

That’s just to mention a few. If anyone wants to get involved in any of the above projects – then feel free to drop me an email! I really want to give some personal advice if you are thinking of running for a sabbatical position (especially DPW), don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t qualified/need to have experience. The less previous involvement you have had, the steeper the learning curve; but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Union needs new faces to bring fresh perspectives and outlooks to problems and projects. If I had listened to everyone that told me I wouldn’t win my election campaign, then there is no way I would be sat in my office writing this article right now. GO FOR IT! If you have any questions about being Deputy President (Welfare) or just spending a year as a sabbatical drop me an email and I am always happy to meet up for a chat.