SU23 - Our questions to Welfare officer candidates

Questions to Welfare officer candidates, Jess Hindley, Kieron Portbury and Níamh Bone

Trigger Warning: Discussion of suicide

What’s your number one priority?

Jess: Many welfare issues have been amplified by the increased cost of living. To truly tackle these issues, we need to tackle the root causes and put more money in students’ hands. The decision by university management to increase accommodation fees is a disgrace. It doesn’t just affect those staying in QUB Accommodation either, because as Queen’s increase their rent, private landlords will be incentivised to increase their rent too. This affects all student renters, and we simply cannot afford it. Therefore, my number one priority will be forcing university management to reverse this increase. At my old university, I helped to lead a rent strike which saved students over £1000 on their rent. I fought for students there and I won, now I want to fight for you. If management continues to refuse to reverse this increase, I will lead another rent strike to force them to reverse it.

Kieron: Above all else, I want to ensure that the cost-of-living support provided by the SU and Queen’s is sustained beyond the next few months. Initiatives like the Pantry are seeing huge uptake and positive feedback, and the cost-of-living crisis isn’t going to just disappear over the summer. The Postgraduate Officer and I have been working with Queen’s Accommodation on developing a student guarantor scheme which should be launched in the upcoming months, and I want to ensure widespread promotion and usage. Accommodation is a key area of cost-of-living support – whether it’s continually lobbying for a rent freeze, pushing for them to return to the free laundry services they offered over the holidays, or working to provide communal items such as cleaning and hygiene supplies.

Níamh: Mental health will always be my number one priority. There is nothing more important than ensuring students are healthy, particularly when students are fighting for their lives. The constituent parts of this student health approach include sexual health therefore I want to introduce a SHAG (Sexual Health and Guidance) week. The cost-of-living crisis is feeding the mental health crisis which is why I want to make fighting for a better standard of housing and renters’ rights a key part of my work as Welfare Officer. In recent weeks, we have seen an increase in attacks on students, and I believe that guaranteeing student safety is vital. 

6 months after you start, what real differences will Queen’s students see in their mental health services?

Jess: In my manifesto, I call for increased mental health funding. This funding will go towards increasing the number of well-being counsellors available and reducing the length of counselling waitlists which are currently ridiculously long. I will also push for longer-term counselling options to be made available for those who need them. QUB has stated that long-term therapy should be accessed through a GP and not university counselling, but accessing a GP is difficult for some students, particularly international students, and this should be rectified. Currently, there is a lack of support available for specific mental health conditions. The SU has even actively promoted harmful behaviour – providing a leaflet for students with eating disorders which encourages them to ‘exercise more’. I would work with external organisations to raise awareness and provide accurate information on often overlooked mental illnesses so that students with these conditions know how to access support.

Kieron: I want to partner with at least 3 different tailored mental health services. I recently established this with a group called Mindful Carers, which provides tailored well-being support to parents and carers, and will now be delivering their services on campus in 2023/24 with support from the SU. There is a wealth of services like this – for LGBTQIA+ people, for ethnic minority people, for victims of crime…the list goes on. Mental health support is never going to be able to be designed with a ‘one size fits all’ approach – it needs to be specific and targeted, which is what I want to see developing at Queen’s. I also want to work to ensure the practical implementation of the action plan arising from the OMNI 2022 survey. Some of this entails working at school and faculty levels to improve their well-being offering and how they provide care to their students.

Níamh: After 6 months, students can expect an increase the number of sessions of free Inspire counselling available, to have received free mental health first aid training (MHFA) and can attend on-campus student support groups if they are struggling with issues such as alcoholism, addiction, or loneliness. I want to have created a culture where every member of the university community feels they can talk openly about any mental health struggles and be met with supportive attitudes from their friends, peers, and lecturers. 

What active steps will you take to make students safer on and around campus?

Jess: Recent events have shown that there are serious issues surrounding safety on and around campus. The university has refused to acknowledge this beyond a single social media post with the phone number for campus security and a link to a student safety guide which includes such great advice as “don’t have nightmares, do sleep well!”. It’s patronising and inadequate. The SU must produce a relevant student safety guide to be distributed and promoted from the start of the academic year - not published on social media without any context after a spate of incidents have already occurred. Safety alarms are currently available in the SU, but they’re not promoted at all – students need to have access to these from the start of the year. I would also promote existing external services such as StrutSafe, which allows people to call their services on Friday-Sunday nights while walking alone to feel safer.

Kieron: The anti-spiking work I’ve begun this year with Belfast City Council will be taken further and I will work with local venues, particularly around the Queen’s area, to implement measures in their own bars. With regards to alcohol and drug use, I will implement the policy I passed around drug and alcohol harm reduction – lobbying Queen’s to rework their Student Policy on Drugs and Alcohol to remove disciplinary measures and initiating practical measures within the SU including the provision of informational resources on drug and alcohol use as well as the de-emphasis of alcohol at SU events. I will also continue the work I’ve started with organizations such as Common Youth and White Ribbon NI to facilitate the delivery of workshops on various aspects of sexuality as well as the development of an action plan for the SU to tackle violence against women and girls.

Níamh: As your Welfare Officer, I will make consent training mandatory and will work for its delivery as a part of SHAG week. Nightline is one of the most important safeguards for students and I will work to guarantee it has sufficient funding. I will make free anti-spiking kits available to all students and mandatory at all social events held by clubs and societies.  This will be followed by a drug harm reduction policy that will see free drug checking kits available to students for free.

How have your personal experiences shaped your manifesto?

Jess: I have already mentioned my experience running successful rent strikes which taught me how to effectively fight against university management and win for students (something I talked more about in my Op-Ed: https://www.queensradio.org/blog/su23-jess-hindley-for-welfare). At my old university, I was a welfare officer for my college. I supported students who were seriously suffering with their mental health but who felt failed by university counselling and wellbeing services. I felt this myself – the pandemic triggered a major spike in my OCD which affected me so badly that I barely left the house for a year, causing me to develop depression. University counselling services weren’t cut out to deal with my specific issues, and the university as a whole seemed unfamiliar with OCD so academic support relied on the kindness of individual lecturers. This experience is the major influence behind my manifesto promise of awareness campaigns for lesser-known mental health conditions.

Kieron: I spoke in my Op-Ed about how my own personal struggles with mental health have shaped my work on it, and the truth is I’ve had personal experiences with every aspect of my manifesto, for better or worse. I know how sexuality is something that shapes the lives of so many young people and that a lack of proper understanding of sexual health, consent, and intimacy can be unbelievably damaging. I have seen and experienced first-hand the harm that drugs and alcohol can do when people are unaware of the short-term and long-term effects of consumption – particularly in Northern Ireland, where drinking culture is a huge part of many students’ lives. In the past year as the Equality & Diversity Officer, I have seen how wrapped up welfare is in every aspect of student life, and how it directly impacts your ability to learn.

Níamh: There is no way to sugarcoat the main experience which motivated me to run nor the words to fully explain it. My boyfriend, Gregory Gamble, died by suicide in his second year at Queen’s. In the wake of his death, I experienced first-hand the complete lack of support being offered to students at QUB and it is something I truly wish no other member of this community must experience. We established the Moving Forward for Greg campaign with several QUB sports clubs in his memory to tackle student mental health. It was while working on that campaign that I decided I would work tirelessly to improve the mental health of this community. Enough is enough. Welfare support here needs reform. It’s time to stop accepting less than we deserve. It’s time for change. 

And finally, what three items would you bring to a desert island to pass the time?

Jess: Not technically an item but I’m going to bend the rules here and say I would bring my cat Charley - I miss her when I’m away at university. She would be good entertainment because I never get tired of watching her play with any random thing she can find, and she’s a great hunter so she would be useful for survival too. Secondly, I would bring my Nintendo Switch so when Charley is away hunting or napping, I can entertain myself. I’ll treat ‘Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ as an educational experience and try and pick up some survival skills. Honestly, I’m not sure even Zelda could teach me enough about survival. I don’t rate my chances in a survival situation so I’d take some sort of magical genie lamp so I could be prepared for anything.

Kieron: Firstly, a copy of Crush by Richard Siken – it is my favourite collection of poetry. It’s an intimate exploration of queer love and desire and I never get tired of it. Secondly, my dog Luna – she’d probably be better at surviving than I would, and she’d certainly know how to ward off any unwanted nasties. Plus, she lives in London, and I miss her. Lastly, my friend’s dog Mona. Luna needs a friend her own size, and you can never have too many dogs if you ask me! Mona will be around next week if you want to meet the most gorgeous Staffy you’ll ever lay eyes on.

Níamh: A Nintendo, an ice cream van with an unlimited supply of ice cream and a surfboard.

To see all the candidates running, visit the Queen’s SU website