April 2023 update from Professor Edward Peck, Higher Education Student Support Champion

Information sharing

I haven now published guidance relating to HEPs sharing information with accommodation providers. I want to thank colleagues from Unipol, CUBO, the NUS, the ICO and the Association of University Legal Practitioners for their support with producing this guide. A related piece on information sharing with Students’ Unions will be published shortly.

Building on the UUK briefing on how and when HEPs should share information with trusted contacts, these guides tackle the core issue of how HEPs should do similar with key partner agencies when there is risk to a student, even where they may not have explicit agreement from the student to do so.

Student support service design

During January and February, I worked with UUK’s Student Policy Network, AdvanceHE, and student representatives to formulate a set of key needs that students need to have met. Since then, I and colleagues from Advance HE have engaged with 10 HEPs to discuss how this framing of student needs can help re-evaluate design and delivery of student support services. By the end of April I am looking to synthesis recurring themes, opportunities, and challenges and collaborate with participating HEPs to define the next stages of the project.

This strand will continue throughout 2023. I expect to deliver final outputs by the end of the calendar year, sharing interim thoughts as I go.

Transition to higher education

Discussions with HEPs highlight that younger students coming into university post-Covid are facing more challenges in adjusting to living independently while undertaking their studies than previous generations. I am interested in exploring how HEPs could articulate and address these challenges better alongside the potential for an even more collaborative approach working with schools and colleges to help. I am going to be undertaking this project in partnership with Unite Students. A series of roundtables will be held over the summer. If you want to be involved, or have colleagues with specific interests or insights into this area, do get in contact.

International students

Whilst the UK remains a popular destination for international students, recent insights appear to show the UK trailing our main competitors when international applicants ranked their perceptions of the student support they would receive once enrolled. I am interested in understanding what may be causing this perception. Since my last update I have engaged with the British Council and British Universities’ International Liaison Association (BUILA) to see where I can add value to current activity and contribute to the sector’s understanding of the experience of international students. I expect to begin this strand in the autumn.

Mental well-being of students

This continues to be a major focus, in part because of the LEARN Network’s petition to enact a Duty of Care in higher education prompting a debate in the House of Commons. I continue to engage with the bereaved families who make up the Network, notwithstanding that I do not support the introduction of a Duty of Care.

However, I do agree with some of their aims, especially those that relate to monitoring of students to identify those who may be experiencing significant mental distress, of which HEPs may be unaware, through improving their use of student analytics. Read my recent report with Jisc on student analytics.

The report demonstrates there are a relatively small number of data points required to deliver insights into mental wellbeing as well as student engagement. These are in most cases being collected by HEPs already.

I am discussing with the DfE the development of ways to enhance and examine the internal student death reviews conducted by HEPs. Also, I want to encourage HEPs to look again at the manner in which student facing policies and procedures are written and communicated.

Understanding more about the local relationships between HEPs and the NHS is still high on my agenda. The pilots conducted through the Office for Students’ Mental Health Challenge Competition have generated valuable examples of good practice and I am keen to identify other partnership models elsewhere in England. The AMOSSHE survey on this topic remains live until late May. Completion of this short survey will inform how we can move forward together.

Meetings and events

Since my last update, I have presented at AMOSSHE Annual Conference in February and the Jisc Annual Conference in March. I am open to attending any sector led event which can help us develop our shared understanding of student support. Please contact me on HESSC@ntu.ac.uk .

Website

I now have a website to highlight the work I am doing as Student Support Champion. It hosts the guidance I have published as well as resources from external sources that I think will be useful to the sector.