Congratulations to Alice Lawrence on being awarded Student of the Year at the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) Awards for her work on recognising and supporting student carers. Alice is a PhD student in the Department of Geography and is based in the Conservation Research Institute.
The NEON Awards celebrate excellence in widening access to Higher Education (HE), and the Student of the Year Award is awarded to a student who has made an innovative and distinctive impact to widening access to HE. Alice together with Rachel Bailey, EDI facilitator at the School of Biological Sciences, set up the Student Carer Working Group in 2024: a staff-student working group that advocates for student carers across the Collegiate University.
The working group has engaged with staff from around 2/3 of the Colleges as well as many central University staff through workshops, presentations and more informal meet ups. Notably, the working group have developed a staff guidance document that is in the process of being finalised. The actions of the working group have been partly informed by findings from research that Alice and Alison Harvey (Learning and Development Manager at the ESRC CAM-DTP) conducted into the experiences of student carers, following a successful application to the University Diversity Fund. Lastly, Alice has provided social activities and peer support for student carers since 2023 and her efforts have led to the development of targeted student wellbeing support.