With the recent government announcement of the national lockdown, at Student Hubs we wanted to update you on the measures we are taking across our five Hubs to support our programme delivery, students, communities and staff team.
Programme delivery
Across the Autumn term and throughout the November lockdown period, we continued to deliver programmes virtually and make alternative arrangements or postpone programmes that were planned for in-person delivery.
These arrangements will continue into the Spring term, and our local Hubs are taking the following actions to support students:
- Our Hub staff will be in touch with all students by the end of the week, alongside contacting university partners, community partners and funders, to confirm the status of programmes and next steps;
- All of our programmes which we planned to run virtually across the network will continue for this academic term with minimal disruption, although our Hub staff will be in touch if there have been any changes to original deadlines and start dates as a result of the national lockdown;
- Any in-person delivery of volunteering that was being planned by local Hub teams will be reviewed, and Hub staff will be in touch with students to confirm whether this programme will be converted to virtual or will be postponed;
- Hubs will continue to run virtual drop in sessions for students to speak to Hub staff and student committees, to provide support for wellbeing during the lockdown period;
- Hub staff will also continue to check in with students about wellbeing, and can provide support and signposting to relevant services to support the wellbeing of students during this time.
We know how beneficial our programmes can be for students to continue to be connected to other students and their university community, so our priority is to ensure that programmes are able to run in an accessible format for the rest of the term.
Please get in touch with our Hub teams in Bristol, Cambridge, Kingston, Southampton and Winchester if you have any concerns or issues about your volunteering this term.
Supporting our communities
At Student Hubs, we recognise that our network of volunteers can provide a multitude of support and capacity for the community organisations and groups we work with. As a result, our Hub teams will be reaching out to our community partners with the support we and our student volunteers can provide during the lockdown period, and how we can support communities through core programmes and ad-hoc delivery if required.
Please get in touch with our Hub teams in Bristol, Cambridge, Kingston, Southampton and Winchester if you would be interested in accessing our support during the lockdown period or this term.
Supporting our staff
We have also taken several steps to support our staff’s wellbeing during the national lockdown, which includes:
- Resuming our daily check ins for staff from Wednesday 6th January;
- Making sure staff take annual leave periods already booked in for this month;
- Staff continuing to have access to our working from home fund to support office equipment;
- We have designated Friday afternoons as optional wellbeing time for the duration of the national lockdown, which means from 12pm staff can choose whether to continue working or take time off during the afternoon to focus on wellbeing activities instead;
- Our Management Team resuming weekly meetings to support the network and programme delivery, as well as monitor government guidance.
We will continue to update our network on our approach to delivery this term and how we are supporting our students and communities.
From all of us at Student Hubs, we encourage you to stay safe and keep well during this time.