Report + Support Third ReportAction plan for 2024

We will continue to meet with the Report + Support fora and review feedback to understand experiences and further needs for the development of the platform. We are keen to understand and remove barriers to making disclosures and to continue to facilitate effective action. We will listen to students and staff and monitor definitions to ensure inclusivity. We have identified the following areas for enhancement in 2024 as a consequence of engaging with students, staff and this report data. These include:

  • Building trust in the platform. We want to better understand the barriers to use and the reservations about making a disclosure. We will bring together expert practitioners from across Student Services, Student Conduct and Human Resources to explore how reports are responded to and outcomes fed back. We will also host round table discussions with students to better understand the barriers to use and the reservations about making a disclosure or its value.
  • Better representing our diverse University population. Updating ethnicity categories to include and represent the diverse student and staff population.
  • Voicing lived experience. Expanding our incident type options to include Antisemitism and Islamophobia. These additions will help us to understand more of the lived experiences of students and staff, to investigate and provide support.
  • Improving communication channels for disclosers. Assisting Culture Shift, the platform provider, with the development of two-way communications for anonymous disclosures. There are still a number of disclosures that are closed as anonymous; developing two-way communications will help those who have made disclosures to maintain contact with staff regarding their disclosure and provide more information if preferred.
  • Raising awareness through campaigns. Supporting student and staff initiatives with campaign materials to raise awareness of inappropriate behaviours during key dates such as Anti-bullying week.

Notes on report analysis

Analysis for this report was contributed by Planning. This analysis was made with anonymised raw data. Where people used free-text, these have been mapped against main categories where appropriate. Any incidents in "Other" that had more than five occurrences have been added as a category.

The data gathered includes disclosures from anonymous and named sources that were made through Report + Support and does not include disclosures made directly to units, for example Student Services, Conduct or Human Resources.  

For all disclosures, there are a considerable number of disclosers who do not give personal characteristics details or choose the option ‘prefer not to say’. This means that the total number of, for example, women disclosing, is expected to be higher than the number who choose to give details of gender.

Authors

  • Rebecca Swarbrick, Deputy Head of Mediation and Wellbeing
  • Ruth Unsworth, Head of Mediation and Wellbeing.

In collaboration with students, colleagues from Student Services, Student Conduct, Human Resources, Student Association and attendees of the Fora.

With support and advice from:

  • Rebekah Widdowfield, Vice-Principal (People and Diversity)
  • Jennifer Awang, Head of Insights and Analysis
  • Pamela Dobson, People and Diversity Executive Officer.

If you would like to be involved in future student or staff fora, please contact reportandsupport@st-andrews.ac.uk.