Recourse just spent a busy weekend at the UCU Congress with a UCU and Recourse Quiz Night, a very interesting joint fringe event on “Tackling stress and bullying in post-16 education”, the launch of a stress test and talking to as many delegates as possible to find out how we can make Recourse serve the people who need it most. Here are our thoughts:
Julian Stanley, Chief Executive
Delegates hotly debated the raft of controversial changes that the coalition government have introduced in the further and higher education sectors. Cuts in funding, the introduction of higher fees and changes to way FE and HE courses are taught, managed & delivered were all scrutinised.
A major theme that emerged in the motions tabled for discussion and in a number of fringe meetings was the effect and the pace of change, in particular the rise in reports of bullying and stress amongst the workforce on colleague and university’s and the damage caused to the morale, health and wellbeing and professional status of UCU members in both academic and non-academic roles. This subject was also the topic of a fringe meeting featuring John Murphy UCU NEC, Philip Burgess, Chair of the UCU Anti-stress and bullying working group, John Bamford, UCU Health and Safety Advisor and myself. The event was attended by 35 delegates.
It was also timely that Recourse was in a position to announce the appointment of the charity’s first Development Manager – Alex Smith, whose attendance was warmly received.
Conference gave us the opportunity to explain and promote Recourse and it’s services and to receive feedback on what we do and how best we can continue to develop responsive crisis intervention services and collaborate with UCU and research institutions to develop strategies, interventions, campaigns and policy initiatives that will work to prevent the further growth of negative working practises.
In a powerful speech to the membership, General Secretary – Sally Hunt appealed for political unity to oppose and counter policies that UCU members believe are undermining the education of current and future generations. Recourse is here to help current and future educationalists, case workers, lay officials, support staff and their families when the going gets tough. We believe that learning to support and develop the workforce must be a priority not only for UCU, but for managers, policy makers and all those who often focus on the savings to be made by reducing sickness absence, but fail to recognise the cost in terms of individual and family lives ruined, skills lost to the sector and the negative impact on student outcomes – especially at a time when parents will want to ensure the fee’s their children are paying are being used to ensure standards are high and that those working with students are highly motivated and well-trained. That can’t happen if the culture in our colleges and university’s is driven by a climate of fear.
Alex Smith, Recourse Development Manager:
Having spent a Bank Holiday weekend away at UCU Conference with my colleagues Jason (Press and Communications) and Julian (Chief Executive), I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on the experience in a blog for this week’s e-newsletter.
As the new Development Manager responsible for building up brand awareness about Recourse in colleges and universities, this weekend was always going to be important for both information gathering and contact collecting. It did not fail to meet this expectation.
Arriving a little bit starry-eyed and bushy-tailed I soon got to work speaking to one delegate after another about their experience with Recourse – whether personal or through what they have heard about it from their friends and colleagues. To my delight feedback was almost unanimously positive, with the majority of delegates saying that they have heard of, used themselves, or referred someone on to Recourse. This was then backed up by written feedback on which the most frequent answer to the question about what each respondent thought about the service was “very useful”. All good so far…
Before anyone can launch into a change agenda they must understand the context of what it is they are changing. Recourse is a great support line and online information service – providing a comforting voice to many academics, support and administrative staff in colleges and universities all across the UK. Therein lies the problem…or not quite problem but more an understanding about what it is our service users think about us.
Clearly communicating what it is that Recourse does is an essential part of increasing the service usage, and expanding the number of information channels happy to promote our message. A great support line that is open 24/7, 365 days a year is actually really great; with a comforting voice which also happens to be a trained professional specialising in offering support to people in post 16 education this offering transforms into something outstandingly great!
Over the weeks and months I hope that we will be refining the way we talk to people about we do…
There is much to chew over and discuss and the ideas generated by both verbal and written feedback will keep us busy. We all know that it will be a difficult time for many people in adult, further and higher education and it is our desire to be ready to respond to their needs when the time comes, whenever that might be.
Jason Harrison, Press and Communications Manager:
The real reason I wanted to be at Congress is to have the chance to talk to tutors, lecturers and support staff about what really matters to them. It is all too easy, sitting in head office, to write about the things you think people in post-16 education are concerned about, but nothing can really beat talking to them face-to-face to find out what is really important.
Generally speaking, the people I spoke to loved their jobs. They may be frustrated with management or exhausted by the many changes facing education, but almost without exception they remained passionate about the teaching and the huge difference they were making. People’s faces genuinely lit up when I asked about their tutor groups or courses. I think that is important to remember, particularly when there is so much negativity around at the moment.
The biggest surprise for me was discovering that Recourse was widely known amongst UCU and its members. We had been under the mistaken impression that not enough had been done to get the name out there, but almost everyone I spoke to had heard of the charity. What is apparently not clear though is just what recourse offers anyone working in FE, HE or adult education.
The weekend was a great start for our new Development Manager Alex and we had so much useful feedback and what we are doing right and what needs more work. There is definitely a renewed sense of excitement amongst us all now as we look to the future of the charity continues to grow.
If nothing else the UCU and Recourse charity night was a talking point and I think most people enjoyed themselves, despite some pretty difficult questions.
The fringe event, where our Chief Executive Julian Stanley spoke about tackling stress and bullying was definitely enlightening. There was some really important discussion on the impact of stress on the workplace and it is clear the conversation will continue.
Most of all I will remember the people I met this weekend. There are some unique characters amongst the UCU membership – you know who you are – and I look forward to meeting and working with you and your colleagues again soon.
