Ms Daphne Ann Kelly1
1Unsw Global, Kensington, Australia
Student Support services play an increasing role in assisting international students in managing their studies. Larger education providers offer a wide range of support services. But how can students make effective use of those services? Is it easy to navigate the support system being offered to students? What does an effective support model look like? How can the support services work together to best support student’s needs in all areas?
Student support can take many forms including ensuring study skills development, helping a student improve attendance, making relevant referrals to other support services or providing immediate response when a critical incident occurs. On rare occasions ‘the risk’ is clear cut, the student has an academic issue or a welfare issue. However, more often than not ‘the risk’ has a knock on effect, spilling over into other areas. Common issues such as exam stress, lack of student engagement in class or attendance problems often bring to the surface other more complex mental health issues such as anxiety or depression just to name a few. A collaboration between a number of student services is required to best assist those students.
The aim of this workshop is twofold. Firstly, to increase participants understanding of the complexity of monitoring students at risk. Secondly, the workshop will explore the advantages and disadvantages of cross department communication for monitoring students. Questions will also be raised in relation to ‘who supports what’, supporting timeframes and supporting to ensure dependency is not created and that boundaries are respected. We would also like to hear from the participants regarding challenges they experience in delivering support to students.
Biography:
Daphne Ann Kelly is a Student Advisor at UNSW Global. Prior to this, she taught TESOL, worked within academic management and as an IELTS examiner.