The Welfare and Community Officer is responsible for helping standing up for the rights of students and for helping to improve welfare and well-being on campus.

The candidates running for the position this year are listed alphabetically by their surname on this page. You can vote on the Guild of Students website.

Matt ‘Matt in the Hat’ James

Matt is a third year History student running to be Welfare and Community Officer under his campaign slogan ‘you Mat-ter.’

Matt feels that the University has failed on several different matters. He feels that the presence of the ‘Not On’ campaign needs to be increased through higher funding. He feels that every first year student should have a compulsory lecture on sexual harassment. He also perceives the current provision of mental health in the Guild to be inefficient. He thinks that students who are seeking mental health provision should be able to see their place in the waiting time with regards to treatment. He wants a more personalised approach for student mental health, and he feels this is a basic right as a consumer. Matt wants a weekend support network to be constructed so that students are trained to help other students who are suffering with their mental health.

He thinks that there should more regular self-defence classes for students. He feels this is really important to ensure that students feel safer around campus and within university life. Matt feels that the Selly Express should be expanded to weekends and to earlier times. He wants to ensure that light coverage is ensured around Selly Oak as this is correlative to crime. Matt plans to discuss with the council to implement this, if we were to be elected.

He wants to ensure that light coverage is ensured around Selly Oak as this is correlative to crime

Matt feels that funding for mental health services should be increased, this would work to give a more tailored and efficient service for students. As noted in his manifesto summary, James also wishes to make waiting times for transparent for students so that they can seek help where suitable.

He highlighted the difficulties that students face to find housemates. He proposes a message board for students to try and seek people to live with. He also emphasises the importance of information for students to make sure they are equipped to cope with mistreatment by Landlords through unexpected costs.

Matt said that he feels that there needs to be a destigmatisation around sexual health. He wants to launch an awareness campaign that allows people to think about sexual health and their general well-being.

Matt outlined that he will prioritise sexual health above anything else in the role of the welfare officer. He highlights how his experience with working within the ‘Not on’ campaign would allow him to effectively approach students on issues of sexual harassment.

Anastasia ‘Banana-stasia’ Maciver 

Anastasia Maciver is an English Literature with Creative Writing student running under her campaign name ‘Banana-stasia’ and she believes that she is the best candidate to be Welfare and Community Officer.

The main points that Anastasia addresses are mental health, navigating housing and making sure the university follows up on crime reports and also ensuring the University follow up reports of sexual misconduct.

She also wishes to expand the Selly Express service to Harborne as she feels that students can often feel isolated

She aims to lobby the university on crime reports as this will enable students to generally feel more inclined to report experiences of sexual misconduct. She also wishes to expand the Selly Express service to Harborne as she feels that students can often feel isolated when living in areas further from the university.

She plans to provide mental health training to society committee members. Maciver notes that welfare points for mental health need to be created around campus so that students feel better directed to mental health support.

She would like to work alongside West Midlands Police so that there is greater transparency with venturing into private letting. She also aims to improve or promote awareness for a comparison website and provide information packages for students so they can receive advice on renting.

She would like to lobby the University to follow up on disciplinary action following up on reports of sexual misconduct reports. Anastasia would also like to make contraception and panic alarms freely available.

She plans to implement a signposting system so that students can feel well informed on where to go for various forms of support

She feels that her signposting policy sets her aside from other candidates. She plans to implement a signposting system so that students can feel well informed on where to go for various forms of support, such as Umbrella sexual health etc. She highlights how students often voice their concerns on Brumfess in reaction to not knowing where to turn if they need support and so a signposting service would help to resolve some of these concerns.

Anastasia is currently president for the Beat UOB society.

‘I am familiar with how the Guild works and how to navigate it.’

 

Charlotte ‘Minty Fresh’ Minter

Charlotte Minter is a fourth-year English Literature and Drama student. She has just come back from a year abroad in Lyon. She believes that she is the best candidate to be elected as Welfare and Community Officer.

One of her main manifesto points is making ‘Not on’ training compulsory for all students. She feels it is important that students are aware of issues surrounding sexual health and consent. She has been in contact with a company called, ‘Big White Wall’ that enable students to have 24-hour support from healthcare professionals.

She also wants to lobby the University to get sleeping pods in the university to make sure students get enough rest; ‘this is a facility which the University of Manchester already has.’

She also wants to lobby the university to get sleeping pods in the university to make sure students get enough rest

When asked about safety in Selly Oak, Minter said: ‘I feel that safety is an important issue which needs to be addressed in Selly Oak.’

Minter emphasises that students should report any crime that they experience to the police. Charlotte wants to increase the distribution of rape alarms and bike locks. She would like to continue the work of the current welfare officer to ensure that all reports of sexual harassment are being dealt with.

Minter raised the issues that students can often feel not eligible to consult a welfare appointment if they are struggling with their mental health. She mentions the website, ‘Big White Wall’ as a potential way in which to bridge the gap between students that feel they cannot go to university welfare support. She also highlights that it is important for her that students from black and male students are given mental health support as well as students from ethnic minorities, specifically in the wake of the Coronavirus for example.

She also wishes to place limits on the number of bedrooms that landlords can add to houses

She also wishes to place limits on the number of bedrooms that landlords can add to houses. She recommended Guild Lettings as a means for students to consult their tenancy contracts before they commit to letting.

Charlotte has made clear that she wishes to make Umbrella sexual health kits available to students and she wishes for students to have their kits discreetly collected.

Charlotte thinks drop in services with Umbrella in the Guild is necessary. She is keen to deconstruct the stigma around sexual health, to prevent the shame that people feel around getting a test done.

 

Kathryn ‘Selly Kat’ Myers

Kat is a third year English Literature and Drama student. She is an international student from Thailand with a British background.

 The main policies that Kat plans to implement are around mental health, sexual health, student housing and student safety. Her campaign places a big focus on ensuring students can access support through working closely with the UB sport, ‘Not On’ campaign, making Pause pop-up spaces available on campus, and through collaborating with community living.

Kat wishes to respond to the concerns of students regarding safety around campus

Kat wishes to respond to the concerns of students regarding safety around campus. However, she feels that in order to enact real change, she needs to collect more data from students, and this can be then used to put measures in space that seek to solve student worries around safety. She feels that the university need to respond to the widespread reports of safety issues that are posted to the Fab n Fresh Facebook page. Kat also plans to develop a closer relationship with the current community wardens and police force to highlight and work on issues associated with private housing.

She feels that the University needs to take a more proactive response to issues of mental health rather than a reactive one. She feels that there should be more alcohol-free events within the University, so students do not feel pressure to drink. Kat also feels that university waiting times for mental health provision are currently too high, she notes how they have recently doubled. Her solution to solving the inefficiencies of the mental health provision is through lobbying the university to increase funding for professional help.

Kat plans to generate useful resources to deal to manage private tenancy agreements. A guarantee of a full deposit for students living in private houses is something that is important to her.

A guarantee of a full deposit for students living in private houses is something that is important to her

She also plans to rerun the Hate-Free Birmingham scheme. The scheme ran in association with hate crime awareness ambassadors. She wishes to ensure that everyone is represented. In regard to sexual misconduct, Kat again emphasises her desire to implement a proactive approach from the Guild, rather than reactive one. Students should feel safe on and off campus, free from any sexual harassment or assault. The provision of sexual health testing kits and contraception would be an example of how the Guild could react proactively.

 

Dagmara Prus

Dagmara’s main campaign slogan is ‘for your experience.’ She is a third year PPE student who has been very involved in ValeFest, helping with outreach and press in her first year, was the treasurer in her second year and is now involved with commercial opportunities in her final year. Prus has been a student rep in second year for PPE and in third year for the school of social policy. She believes that her experiences make her the best candidate to be Welfare and Community Officer.

While Dagmara does not live in Selly Oak, she recognises that crime and safety in Selly Oak is an issue. She believes the university could be doing more to help. Dagmara would raise awareness in the city about the issue of crime in Selly Oak, she used to work at the council and is aware that they do not take it seriously enough. She would work with external companies and estate agents to help this further.

Dagmara plans to raise awareness on the current available services for mental health. She also outlined how there must be a more active role in providing mental health support, right now students are required to take the first step. Referrals should be made from societies and from schools.

Dagmara plans to raise awareness on the current available services for mental health

Dagmara will build on the campaign and work of the current Welfare and Community officer, Millie Gibbins, who wanted to create a website which detailed what to look out for when renting a house, to create a single system which is updated and current to take information from. A service within the University to ask for help form someone who is more knowledgeable. She will create a system which offers general support when anything goes wrong with the contract or the deposit.

She believes that well being is knowing that if anything goes wrong for the students they can get support from that. She will raise awareness of mental health and sexual health services and encourage people to get involved more in societies etc to ensure well being.

She will raise awareness of mental health and sexual health services and encourage people to get involved more in societies etc to ensure well being

Dagmara wants to incorporate any initiatives into other tools. Other services should be more active in their use. Having experience as a student representative, Prus recognises that students are unaware of the changes that they can make and what they can do to change their own experience. Improve the communication system so students can raise their issues with anything easier, the students can be more active and the academic staff will be more aware.

She will improve the communication methods and make sure that sexual health is being talked about and promoted, incorporating this into any campaigns or events the Guild run. Try to create a newsletter focused on wellbeing and support, to remind the students of the services which are there for them, so students know where to go.

Tom ‘Sheriff Tom’ Richardson

Tom’s biggest campaign slogan is ‘make Selly safe.’  Richardson is a fourth-year student who was on a year abroad last year and he believes he’s the best candidate to be Welfare and Community Officer.

Tom’s campaign is split into three main points: safety, welfare and housing.

Tom has been a community warden for two years and therefore believes he is in a good position to understand the issues in Selly Oak. He wants to introduce a firmer strategy to deal with issues of keeping students safe in Selly Oak and how we should respond to the issues of safety that are raised. Tom wishes to increase the number of community wardens so more can be done.

He wants to introduce a firmer strategy to deal with issues of keeping students safe in Selly Oak

Tom wants to have strong and frank conversations with senior members of the University as to why the same manifesto points and the same issues, like improving counselling provision, are repeatedly raised during these elections and are not being properly dealt with. Tom will hold the University accountable for its short fallings in counselling services and will keep the students informed if they do not adequately work to improve them.

Tom will hold the university accountable for its short fallings in counselling services and will keep the students informed

Tom believes that currently, the ‘Don’t Rush it’ Scheme already helps students to fully consider the housing contracts they are signing. Richardson realises that landlords can take advantage of students, therefore he wants stringent guidelines and repercussions for landlords which do this. Tom believes that landlords are most taking advantage of students by giving them bad houses to sell or rent. As a community warden, the problem he sees the most often is houses which are kept in poor conditions. Tom thinks that students should be fully aware of the conditions of the house that they are signing a contract for/moving in to.

He believes that student well being is very important and that the University has a responsibility to ensure this. Tom has two main points. Firstly, he will ensure that the University will actually implement a community peer to peer support scheme, where students are trained on giving welfare advice and meet their peers to give this advice. Tom will make sure that this scheme is set up properly with students given the correct advice to advise students. He wants to introduce an outreach scheme for the ‘Not on’ scheme to deal with violence and sexual assault. Tom wants the members of the scheme to be able to provide outreach for victims of these sorts of crimes.

Tom pledges to continue and expand on the previous welfare officer’s work, Millie Gibbins, which concerned sexual health. He wants to push sexual health and make sure there is the availability to get what you want when you need it, with the students who need help being sign posted in the right direction.

He finished by explaining to Redbrick that his manifesto is very realistic and from his work in the Guild of Students and as a community warden, he knows that what he has promised he will be able to achieve. If Tom was going to pick out one, he would highlight his campus-wide and Selly Oak safety strategy so there is a way of monitoring safety and crime in Selly Oak so students can feel safe.