A Framework for Supporting Student Transition and Wellbeing: Insights from Sheffield Hallam University
Sarah Smart (Student Transition and Welfare Manager) explains how Sheffield Hallam University supports students’ wellbeing through the transition and welcome experience alongside university wide collaborative initiatives.
The Challenge: Student Mental Health and the Transition into University
The transition into higher education is a key part of the student journey. Universities get to greet all their new students, ensure that they are study ready and support an early sense of belonging and communities. Evidence has shown that a student's transition and welcome experience can significantly impact on their likelihood to continue and complete their course, and their overall wellbeing and happiness at university.
Students often feedback that when they start university they feel overwhelmed with information. They struggle to settle into university life and make friends, leaving them feeling lonely and isolated. This has become more apparent since the pandemic and in a recent Student Minds (2022) survey, 74% of students reported that Covid-19 has had a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing at university.
As such, as part of the transition experience, universities should strive to provide students with plenty of opportunities to feel study ready, settle into their accommodation, meet others on and off their course, engage with social activities and join clubs and societies. Alongside this, knowing where to get help and support if needed is crucial.
The Sheffield Hallam Welcome Experience
In response to this, at Sheffield Hallam University we have created the Hallam Welcome experience which embeds a one-university proactive, targeted and appropriate framework of communication, support and activities. Students are guided step by step through their pre-arrival journey, using a number of tools including an expansive Welcome Hub, which includes planned and proportionate on-boarding communications, and a comprehensive online module ‘Your Hallam Welcome’, which students are encouraged to complete before they arrive. Students have fed back that these tools provide them with all the essential information they need and it “gave a great insight into the Hallam experience and had access to any questions I needed answering”.
Ensuring students have access to the right information, at the right time is essential to encouraging engagement with welcome and appropriate services. At Hallam we agree that proactively promoting key messages from the start ensures that students are confident and ready to arrive and begin their new life at university.
For 2022/23 our key messages included:
raising awareness of on campus services such as the library, skills support, student wellbeing and funding;
being clear on student expectations and codes of conduct;
how to keep yourself safe both in person and online;
and encouraging opportunities to engage with extra-curricular activities such as societies and sports clubs.
Alongside this, all students were timetabled a ‘Supporting You at Hallam’ session, which further reminded them of student support and wellbeing services available to them, and how to get support if they are in crisis. All of these messages are timed to be delivered at the appropriate point to engage students with the support and opportunities available and support their transition into higher education.
For example, although messages about support and wellbeing are drip-fed throughout transition journey, more focus is put on communicating out these messages in the weeks straight after welcome week. This is to support students who are starting to experience homesickness, loneliness and difficulties with settling in and making friends after the initial excitement of arrival and welcome is over. This includes promoting out specific wellbeing group sessions and Student Union activities which support students to make connections alongside the delivery of a support and wellbeing on-campus event.
The university works in partnership with the Student Union and during Welcome Week, students are asked to engage with both their course induction experience, alongside the University and Students’ Union welcome. All course induction schedules are tailored to the individual courses but include some university wide mandatory sessions to ensure a consistency of experience. This includes an introduction to your course session and a ‘meet your course mates’ session. Again, these sessions are designed to encourage both academic led and peer-to-peer relationships and to encourage the development of communities within the course.
During the last few years, the demand on support and mental health services within the university has risen substantially. As students move past the initial excitement of welcome, the levels of homesickness, isolation and study pressures increase. It is essential that there is support in place which students can access in order to get advice, guidance and support with next steps.
At Hallam we offer a wide range of support for students. The Hallam Help service is the university’s one-stop-shop for dealing with all student enquiries and enables all students to be able to access support and be triaged into the right service. All students have access to the unique ‘Student Support Triangle’, which offers all students a named Student Support Adviser, Academic Adviser and Employability Adviser.
The university also offers a wealth of specialist support including wellbeing, funding, disability support, international student support and general skills and library support. These support services also work in collaboration with the SHU Progress scheme which supports the transition of priority groups into the university including carers, care leavers and estranged students.
Support in Changing Times: From Transition to Progression and Completion
The transition into university is not the only challenge facing student mental health. The Sheffield Hallam January 2022 Student Voice Bulletin noted that students are continuing to experience challenges with their mental health, engaging with on-campus teaching and learning, timetabling and the cost of living.
On speaking to students who are struggling with their engagement, it was identified that a high proportion of students are choosing to commute to university rather than move into university accommodation. Many students are also working full time alongside their studies and financial concerns are high on students' list of worries.
The cost-of-living crisis is hitting students hard, and many are deciding not to pay travel fees onto campus to attend teaching and learning, but rather choosing to catch up using online resources. As such, universities are having to think creatively of ways to both support students during this financial crisis, in addition to increasing engagement and supporting the development of communities on campus.
Alongside static tuition fees, universities are also conscious that increasing income fees and reducing student dropout rates is key for longer term financial sustainability and adherence to the OfS Access and Participation priorities and B3 data collection requirements.
At Hallam, students can access a wide range of financial support from emergency food vouchers, access to free period products and funds to scholarships and bursaries. In 2022 the university commissioned a ‘re-imaging the communities’ project and some key priorities were identified including the creation of a Community Ambassador role, where students are employed to develop community-based initiatives.
Alongside this, the campus is being revitalized for staff and students with new initiatives such as ‘Gather’, a regular market place event focused on specific areas such as student wellbeing and employability. The campus regeneration plan is also underway to develop new spaces to encourage both community and wellbeing and to improve longer term financial and environmental sustainability.
Student wellbeing and experience is also top of the agenda at Hallam with an integrated one university approach to wellbeing, promoted via the Student Wellbeing Programme, and underpinned by Hallam joining the University Mental Health Charter Programme. New wellbeing initiatives are continuously being developed including ‘Stay Well, Study Well’, a collaborative initiative between the Library Skills Team and the Student Wellbeing Service.
Beyond Transition: Supporting Student Life
Alongside all this work to support students and their wellbeing, the university strives to ensure that we are supporting students at every step of their journey. The Hallam Welcome framework encourages extended induction embedded within the course, as well as ensuring that all courses embed a framework of ‘welcome back’ activities at each progression point.
Listening to the student voice and co-creating services is crucial to the success of services, and the University is committed to the co-production of a Student Futures Manifesto by Summer 2023 as set out by the UPP Foundation Report. This will outline six key themes including outlining the plans for how the universities plan for the transition into university and across progression points.
As the university's new Student Success and Engagement Team is embedded, we will start to evaluate the use of Learner Analytics engagement data to support and enhance student success, encouraging students proactively into support early to encourage retention and progression.
We are committed to ensuring the work that we do has an impact on student engagement, wellbeing and success and using evaluation tools, such as the theory of change, can support us with this.
About the author
As Student Transition and Welfare Manger I am responsible for leading a multi-functional team including the Student Support Advisory Service, Residential Support and the new Student Success and Engagement Team. The service delivers welfare and pastoral support for students studying at Sheffield Hallam, which is underpinned by preventative and proactive interventions to support continuation, retention and student success. As part of my role I am also the strategic lead for Hallam Welcome and transition activities across the university. Prior to this role I led the frontline Hallam Help Service, and I was previously Head of Sheffield Regional Assessment Centre and Assistive Technology Service.