Welfare provision at Oxford suffers from cross-college inconsistency and low levels of awareness, according to a Cherwell survey.
Tom Perry, OUSU Campaign Officer has said that this variance is “one of the biggest problems with Welfare provision at Oxford.”
Statistics show the benefit of the collegiate system, with over 50% of students rating their college as “supportive” or “very supportive” when it comes to welfare provision, but only 2.2% of students rated university-wide support in the top category.
One of the striking problems is the variation in support experiences which students with similar problems can experience, due to differences in individual college welfare systems.
“Everyone was really good and understanding, helped me get help and basically put me back on track”, said one St Anne’s student, who suffered with anxiety.
An LMH student on the other hand, who was prescribed medication for panic attacks, said that college welfare services were “utterly useless and offered no practical advice. My personal tutor told me I needed to ‘just do the work’ which was very unconstructive.”
Questions have been raised about whether colleges and the wider university believe welfare issues and disciplinary procedures go hand in hand.
In a number of colleges, one member of staff (usually the Dean) is responsible for both welfare provision and academic discipline.
Dani Quinn, current OUSU VP for Welfare said that this can lead to “a problematic conflict of interest and can also put students off approaching those staff members at an early stage.”
“For some students this presents a difficulty, but it also offers opportunities in the system for spotting welfare problems”, points out Elsa Bell, Director of Student Welfare and Head of the University Counselling Service.
Academic pressures are a huge source of welfare concern, with 79.5% of students citing work stress as a significant factor in issues they had been experiencing.
“My friend last year was struggling with first year Maths and used to get ‘are you fucking joking?’ written on her work when she made mistakes – and they ended up dropping out,” said a student at LMH.
Personal or family problems came second (41%) as a cause of health or mental health problems and 35.9% of students said that any concerns were down to social or peer pressures.
Provisions for mental health were highlighted with only 2.6% of students saying they were “very happy” with mental health services.
Helen Ginn, a student at Magdalen who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia said, “Sometimes complaints aren’t taken seriously enough. It is a little strange that welfare is mostly associated with handing out free lube. Welfare should be more than this.”
There are a huge number of services available to Oxford students, but awareness still needs to be raised. This problem is even more acute at university level which offers specialised help including the Counselling Service, Nightline and Safety Bus.
However according to statistics provided by the Counselling Service in Wellington Square, almost half (46.2%) of students are self-referred.
Last year 1163 students made an appointment with the service, which has received student satisfaction ratings of over 80%.
“One of my roles is to make sure that routes to support are more visible and obvious to students,” said Elsa Bell.
The role of welfare reps, often seen as “the first port of call” for students, was also emphasised by the survey, with the majority of students saying that they would go to friends first (65%) followed by family (54%).
Most welfare reps say they help between 5 and 15 students per term on an ongoing basis, while also conducting popular weekly events like welfare tea.
Although one welfare rep commented, “the main things we do, to be honest, is to pidge people supplies such as condoms and pregnancy tests.”
Some students have brought up the issue of trust compared with confiding in friends, commenting that the college community can work against itself with students concerned that others might gossip.
“I don’t find the Welfare reps approachable, but I don’t think this is specific to our current reps, it’s more that going to other students that aren’t my friends seems odd to me”, said a first-year Magdalen student.
Lack of comprehensive, university-wide guidance has also been raised. “Peer support training is badly organised and some students can’t apply for peer support as they have labs”, said one welfare rep, who didn’t want to be identified.
“We haven’t been given a lot of advice on what exactly is expected of us”, said another college welfare officer.
A university spokesperson said, “The University takes the welfare of its students extremely seriously and continues to invest significant resources in services to support students.”
