Social support

Starting university life and making friends can be daunting for new students but for some it can lead to isolation if they find it difficult to mix with their peers. In extreme cases this can force them to drop out of their studies. However, a pilot project that has just been completed at Edge Hill University to support student engagement could change all this.


Student Services were all too aware of the complex and often invisible barriers that some people face at university and so joined up with the counselling team to explore new ways to support these students.

Based on extensive research, an innovative Social Support Group was started. The idea was to enhance student engagement as this is closely related to student success and also linked to retention because students are more likely to complete their education if they don't feel excluded.

The group idea was a new idea centring on a combination of social networking with some strong but unobtrusive support elements. The group itself was very informal and responsive to the participants but it used a Solution Focused Approach (SFA), which originates from counselling therapy and focuses on people's strengths and personal resources as well as focusing on what they wish to achieve.


Its unique features included a focus on the development of a mutually supportive environment where the group can readily help each other and also develop goals because goal driven activity has been seen to positively influence persistence, retention and commitment.


Head of Counselling Services Liz Diamond, who developed the idea with counsellor Anne Proctor, explained: "We are committed to working on interventions that might impact on the critical and necessary sense of involvement and personal efficacy, which is why we realised that there needed to be multiple and diverse opportunities throughout the journey for students to engage with different people for different purposes, hence why we decided to try a new approach by launching the Social Support Group.


Anne, who facilitated the group developed this further: "The idea behind this unique approach was to bring together those who could feel lonely and isolated to get together in a non-threatening environment and build a support network for them.  From our point of view it gave us an opportunity to explore how best to reach students who may, for varying reasons, be seeking a sense of community and engagement. For the students, it opened so many new doors in terms of building relations and widening their social circle as well as benefiting from counselling support too."

The group attracted six participants who attended weekly session on a regular basis.

Before they joined the group, they felt isolated, that they weren't meeting enough people socially, or felt that not being a drinker limited social interaction.

However, being part of the group changed their outlooks and they described as "more than just a social group".

Comments included:


·          "It's helped me embrace rebuilding, increasing for me a sense of self esteem."

·         "I have started looking more on the bright side of things...if something bad happens I start to look at ways I can solve it rather concentrating on how awful it is."

·         "I am more confident in my work...I just seem to look at things in a bit less negative light."

·         "Previously I was pretty frustrated with university in general. Meeting people who are actually nice has made me feel better about university in general."

·         "I was used to being ignored whenever I complained about anything...I have become a bit more assertive."

·         I'm a bit more confident about going to tutors and asking for help...a while ago I would have just sat back and panicked until it passed, which is never did."

 

All the members felt it had really worked it and one described it as: "A sort of X Factor...you can't quite put your finger on it...I would hazard a guess that its development came at an early stage and that along with the camaraderie and the development of trust of interaction was maybe what gave us that sense of continuity."


All six members now want to continue the group, which indicates that it must have fulfilled some function for the participants.


The team has evaluated the findings and feel there is enough evidence to suggest that it is worthwhile setting up further groups in the next academic year and would like to encourage more students to take advantage of this type of initiative.


Anne said: "A very important area for us is the way we generate access to the groups. For this initial group, three had a recognised learning challenge for which they received support and others were struggling with some personal issues. We recognise that this is a very important function of such a group and it was very satisfying to see the way all the members of the group have managed these challenges. However, at the same time we would like to spread our net a little wider and look to  access students who may not necessarily be already making use of the support systems in place. At the moment, we're even exploring the possibility of setting up a ‘virtual' group of a similar nature for those who, due to family commitments for example, cannot physically sit in a room with others on a weekly basis but would still benefit froma support network.


"I believe that as the institution grows and recruits more widely, we must ensure that initiatives such as this become embedded in our culture as being vital rather than desirable to enhance student engagement."