When I began planning for my year as the re-elected School Representative for Psychology & Humanities, one of the biggest priorities in my action plan was finding more ways to strengthen our academic community, create a sense of belonging and help students feel connected and supported

I’m therefore incredibly excited to share that one of those ideas has officially become a reality – the new Buddy Scheme has officially launched for both Psychology and Humanities (including Psychology at Burnley)

The scheme is designed to give first-year students access to friendly, student-led peer support from second and third year students who have already been in their shoes. Through regular drop-in sessions and 1-to-1 Buddy support, students will have somewhere to ask questions, get advice, share concerns or simply speak to someone who understands what adjusting to university can actually be like

Getting to this point has involved a lot behind the scenes - developing the structure of the scheme and the Student Buddy role, working alongside staff to shape the proposal, creating the recruitment forms, slides and resources, and thinking about how we can make the support genuinely useful and approachable for students

For me, this is about much more than launching another initiative. It’s about beginning to put the commitments I made in my School Rep action plan into practice. I wanted this year to focus not only on representing student voices when problems arise, but also on proactively creating opportunities that respond to what students have told us they need :)

After all the planning, it feels slightly surreal to finally see recruitment open for both Psychology and Humanities – and it’s been so lovely to already see students wanting to be part of it! 

There’s still lots I want to achieve this year, but seeing one of the ideas from my action plan move from a plan on paper to something students will actually be able to access feels like a pretty special way to start..

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported the idea and helped me get it to this stage - it is truly appreciated. I’m so excited to build our first team of Student Buddies and see where we can take the scheme from here! ❤️