Situation

I had the idea of a student carer support plan as I saw that there was a gap in the available support for some of our most vulnerable students in SoSS – those with significant caring responsibilities. This is any student who provides sustained and significant care, assistance or support to a vulnerable partner, relative, family member or friend who could not manage without their help due to a long-term physical or mental health condition, disability, addiction or frailty.

Students with these caring responsibilities are included in the National Strategy for Access to Higher Education, but they are often considered part of a ‘hidden population’ in higher education because they do not always disclose their caregiving roles. This makes it harder for us to identify them and provide the appropriate support.

Organisations such as Carers Trust and the Office for Students highlight that young adult carers are four times more likely to drop out of university than their peers due to the pressure of balancing academic work and caregiving. They often face higher rates of mental health issues, have less time to socialise and can experience financial difficulties. Many student carers are unaware of the support available to them through the University or may be reluctant to disclose their situation due to stigma or fear of discrimination.

Action

I put a student carer support plan in place to address the unique barriers to study that our student carers can face. The plan can provide tailored adjustments, such as automatic deadline extensions, attendance considerations and additional academic support (through two of our amazing School Academic Advisors, Wayne and Gary!).

Giving our students the option to apply for a student carer support plan helps us identify who our student carers are (as the University doesn’t collect this data as standard) and means we can make sure that they are signposted to other relevant University support services via their dedicated point of contact within the SoSS Student Support and Wellbeing team.

Getting the plan in place involved speaking to some of our student carers to ask what kind of support would benefit them during their studies. We then consulted academic staff to get their input on the support plan measures.

Result

Since the launch at the end of October, we now have eight student carers with a support plan in the School, and more applications incoming. Before the project, student carers were often unidentified and only accessed support when they reached crisis point. Now, the student carer support plan helps us identify vulnerable students a lot earlier, who would have otherwise gone 'under the radar'. We have been able to give additional support and signpost to other areas such as the Cost-of-Living Fund.

Want to find out more?

Email Annie Griffin-Carter for more information on this project.

Share your service excellence story

If you would like to share your or your teams examples of service excellence, please complete our short form.