Tuesday 14-01-2020 - 16:38

Hello everyone,

 

Firstly I’d like to say a very late happy new year to you all and I hope you had the most brilliant time off over the break. I would like to take a few minutes of your time to update you on a few things that have been happening since taking up the role of care experienced officer. Myself, Rachel Hyslop and Bethany Stevenson have all been working together to try and develop the presence of our care experienced population on campus, aiming to better their experience whilst at Glasgow Caledonian and we’ve started to make some headway.

 

Before Christmas myself, Rachel and Bethany all attended a meeting of the universities corporate parenting strategy board in which we had several conversations relating to care experienced students. There were discussions around the current intake of students and how we can increase the number of self-identifying students (students who tick the care experienced box), how we as a university can support people to embrace this and how we can support them to feel comfortable and supported to declare their experience.

 

As a result of this discussion, we have been invited to meet with the university's Senate committee in March 2020 to explore ways that the care experienced community and the university may work together to change the current culture of the university and make it as accepting and as knowledgeable about care as we possibly can, it is my hope as care experienced officer that we can develop a training tool or resource to be rolled out amongst all staff in all schools that would explain what care experience is and how it might affect students whilst in a university setting. This will take time but I will aim to keep you updated with any signs of progress that are made.

 

This corporate parenting group also discussed the issue of self-declaration with regards to how care experienced applicants are referred too, and we discussed whether the current use of language is appropriate, this will hopefully be considered for estranged people also as we identified that many care experienced people may also fall under the remit of estrangement. This has been taken under advisement by the access team and we will all be working together over the next while to make sure these forms can be made as smooth as possible and with as little hindrance to the care experienced population as possible.

 

One final piece of brilliant news, and I hope you are all aware of this already, but last year the Scottish government made a pledge to remove the upper age limit for the care experienced bursary that is supplied by SAAS (https://news.gov.scot/news/improving-access-to-education-for-care-experienced-students) meaning that there should be no age limit as long as you can provide evidence that you are care experienced and that this is your first degree!

 

Going forward in the year I will aim to update you on any changes or progress that comes from my role as officer.

 

If you have any questions you can contact either myself (email below), Bethany or Rachel and one of us should be able to help.

 

Hoping that this Blog finds you all well,

 

Kind regards,

 

David Grimm, Care Experienced Officer.

 

Email: CESOfficer@GCUstudents.co.uk