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In response to a letter written by Harriet St Pier on the 20 June this year, the Institute of Health and Social Care Studies seeks to answer the question: "What more can the island do to better equip students for success?"
"We, at the Institute of Health and Social Care Studies - part of The Guernsey Institute – fully recognise the issues raised in the opinion column dated 20th June 2022 on the Student Wellbeing Crisis. In particular we concur with point raised around the fact that students have been facing issues since well before pandemic times; it hasn’t just come about in the past two years.
"In recognition of challenges students have been experiencing, we have spent the past three years developing a number of wellbeing initiatives for our nursing students. The aim being to promote and support the development of their wellbeing knowledge and skills that can not only enhance their student experience, but also positively impact upon their future professional and personal lives.
"Now, we have a number of measures in place to help support students: they have access to lecturers working within the wellbeing team throughout their programmes who are qualified to provide mental health support with a key focus of signposting to community organisations.
"Informing students of the organisations they can access for additional support is key and a ‘wellbeing route map’ has been designed for them to navigate with support for the Institute team. Students also have access to a significant number of recognised providers that can support them with their wellbeing, and they all complete lectures each year on contemporary, relevant wellbeing topics eg. assertiveness, resilience, sleep hygiene and study stress skills. These taught sessions include opportunities for the students to also complete individual personal wellbeing plans to support their development.
"Finally, students are supported to have a reasonable adjustment in place to support their wellbeing in relation to completing their practical and theoretical assessments if they have a disclosed health condition.
"The Institute has recently finished completion of its welfare framework to support students with their wellbeing, this has enabled the completion of additional staff learning and development alongside implementing a healthy workplace charter that encourages role modeling healthy workplace behaviours at the Institute.
"While we are pleased with the progress we have made and while we recognise these achievements; it is imperative that we continue to work with our students, new and completing for this to improve and evolve, especially as their programme requires 4600 recorded hours in order for them to register with the NMC on completion of their degree.
"We were very pleased to see the opinion letter drawing attention to this issue, and whilst it could be deemed a shock to read, it highlighted very well the local and national challenges young people (in the main), are experiencing. It is vital that student wellbeing issues continue to be raised and imperative that the question you ask of the Bailiwick remains open for debate; exploring further opportunities for students to be healthy and successful.
"As the Mental Health Foundation remind us - ‘Thriving not surviving’ should be in everyone’s reach."
OPINION: There is an urgent need to address the student wellbeing crisis
