Collaborating to improve social mobility from pre-entry to post-graduation
Amy Kinsman , Careers Adviser at the University of St Andrews , details the importance of internal and external collaboration at all stages of the student journey to improve social mobility for students and graduates.
The University of St Andrews has a diverse and vibrant student community, and students come from a range of backgrounds, having achieved various qualifications. As a careers adviser, I have been collaborating with internal and external colleagues to implement support from pre-entry to post-graduation to improve the outcomes for our widening participation (WP) students.?
Working with admissions?
My aim was to remove the apprehension or confusion that early year students may feel when accessing the career centre for the first time. Over the last three years, I have been collaborating with the university’s admissions department to provide tailored career support for pre-entry students. We agreed to deliver career skills workshops on the First Chances Fife programme and the Sutton Trust Summer Schools programme, both of which cater to pupils who are considering entering higher education.
Engaging with students at this pre-entry stage builds rapport early in their academic journey and makes them aware of the careers support that is available. The collaboration with admissions has given me direct access to these pupils and meet them in a space where they already feel comfortable and supported.?
Supporting current students?
The University of St Andrews offers FE-HE Pathway to Arts and FE-HE Pathway to Science entry routes for applicants who fulfil the specified entry criteria with a supported pathway onto degree level study. The aim is to provide flexibility and additional support within the first two years of study, with a view to progressing onto a named honours programme. A component of the pathway programmes is mandatory learning mentoring sessions which are led by admissions and aim to equip students with the skills to succeed at university.
We realised it would be beneficial for some of these sessions to have a careers focus. Therefore, since 2021, I have delivered an intensive career workshop for first-year students during their induction week in September and again in April. This is an opportunity for the students to get to know me as a careers adviser and for us to work together to tackle career-related challenges such as imposter syndrome. Collaborating with admissions means I can engage throughout the year with the cohort of around 150 supported pathway students via an MS Teams channel. This channel has a real sense of community and helps me monitor which careers topics to address.?
A key offer to our WP students is the careers centre employability bursary which provides up to ￡700 towards the cost of employability related activities. It was initially challenging to raise awareness of the bursary and ensure students felt comfortable accessing it without worry of judgment. To overcome this, I worked with the university’s student services and admissions teams who have existing rapport with those I was trying to target, and we were able to send direct emails to our WP students. I also worked with earlier student recipients of the bursary to create case study blog posts detailing their experiences. Having this designated section on our blog has helped to increase the visibility of the bursary and has also been a source of positive news to share with university colleagues.?
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Cross-university collaboration
It has been wonderful to join a variety of university groups where we can share knowledge and work towards common goals. In the Leaving University Well Group, which focusses on supporting vulnerable individuals post-graduation, we have been working together to create a digital resource that students can use when graduating and make them aware that careers support is available for a further three years.?
Last year, the University of St Andrews’ Supporting Access Students Working Group was formed with student services, admissions, careers, accommodation, the student’s association, business transformation, centre for educational enhancement and development, residential services, corporate communications, finance and academic staff to collectively work to support our widening access students. We found that our Corporate Parenting Plan needed to be updated because it is important that care-experienced students feel supported across the institution, and it is also a legal requirement in Scotland.
The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 defines corporate parenting as "the formal and local partnerships between all services responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked after children, young people and care leavers". We worked together to create a designated webpage for care-experienced students where we added the Corporate Parenting Plan and I became the named careers contact. The careers centre pledged to review, improve and collaborate by participating in the ongoing expansion of the network of careers advisers looking at support for care-experienced young people and exploring the development of a network of care-experienced coordinators in the Scottish HE sector.?
Sector collaboration
Since making this pledge, I have been working with Nicola Sutherland , Senior Careers Adviser at the 英国斯特拉斯克莱德大学 , to establish an AGCAS Scotland social mobility special interest group. We are both excited to develop this cross-institutional collaboration that aims to positively benefit students with social mobility. We have our first meeting in March 2024 and look forward to developing new initiatives with other HE careers professionals.?
Collaboration has been key to the success of improving social mobility for our WP students. Working with colleagues internally and externally has helped to enhance the level of support available and has increased the engagement with students who might not have otherwise accessed the careers centre. There is still much more work to do and while I have learned from the last three years that building relationships for collaboration does not happen overnight, it is sincerely worth the investment of time.?
This article was published in the March 2024 issue of Phoenix, the AGCAS journal, which focused on social mobility. Read about the impactful activities taking place in careers services across the UK to enhance the social mobility of students and graduates in the latest issue.