Community Building for Students

We were well aware of the growing mental health issues among young people. The head of a local school in Swansea told me some years ago that we should expect a tsunami of mental health problems in subsequent years, and that has been born out. Much of this has been associated with the prevalence of social media and the levels of anxiety and paranoia that this has generated. This was only exacerbated by lockdown, and was added to as young people were unable to socialise and could only maintain contact through various forms of social media. Linked to this was the observation that in many cases the lockdown period also led to a restriction in the growth of social maturity among young people.

There are probably many other factors involved, but the two consequences that we have seen, and are repeated through my conversations in many different types of university here in the Midlands, are first a growth in the numbers of students seeking counselling, and second the high levels of absenteeism in relation to lectures. Universities moved fairly quickly, on the whole, to provide some element of face to face engagement in learning and teaching, despite all the complaints by government ministers and others, and students generally said that what they wanted was face to face teaching. The reality, however, is that with a level of hybrid delivery still in place students are choosing not to turn up to lectures and are engaging, so far as they can, online, or perhaps not at all.

What came out of my conversations around the chaplaincies, however, was the recognition that this is not just to do with lectures, where alternative means of gaining access to the information might be available. Across the chaplaincies, and in other areas of collective activities (clubs, socials etc.) there is also an apparent lack of willingness for students to leave their rooms and to turn up. This is not true of all students, or of all activities, but as one chaplain told me it is a calculation that the students are making, as to whether the anxiety and stress caused by going out is worth the gain in attending an event. Students will sign up, they believe these are things they want to do, but when the moment comes, the stress is too high and, if they do not see the outcome as great enough, they will choose not to leave their room.

Again, the anxiety, as it has been expressed to me, is two-fold. There is a fall-out from lockdown and an unease about simply being in a group. Socialising in person is a stressful activity in and of itself. However, there is also the social media element at play. In this case that expresses itself as a fear of saying, or doing, the wrong thing. The levels of potential ‘offence’ that might be caused by an inadvertent remark or unintended physical contact is perceived to be so high that students are reluctant to put themselves into a position where they might cause offence and suffer the virulent backlash that they see so often coming as a consequence. It is therefore easier to do nothing, to go nowhere and to remain within the confines of their own rooms and their own, known, circle of social media friends.

This is a very sad situation and I have been told that chaplaincies are quieter than ever. These are places where offence is easily given and easily received. They are voluntary. The rewards of attendance and engagement are not overly high in most young people’s reckoning. And so, while levels of one to one engagement, counselling and online activity, is still very high, and perhaps growing, the buildings are practically empty, a shadow of their former selves.

What went through my mind as I listened to this, however, was some of my own experience, many years ago, when I was undertaking church based community work in the isolated and insecure neighbourhoods of East Manchester. I have been trained in community organising in the Chicago school, but always found it difficult to build any sense of community in these neighbourhoods where slums had been cleared, new flats built, and the flats demolished, all in a matter of ten years, leaving small, isolated clusters of housing amidst vast open areas of wasteland. The congregations, within the churches of the area, felt permanently under siege and saw the ‘community’ as the ‘enemy’. My job was simply raising levels of confidence, enabling people to look out beyond their own small worlds to see the bigger picture and to reach out to others.

Part of me thinks, therefore, that much the same has now to happen within our universities, and among our young people. Much of the work that is undertaken so far to meet student mental health issues focuses on the individual, through one to one counselling, or through courses aimed at building personal and individual resilience. I believe that we might have to go back to first principles, however, and begin the process of community building among those who have lost, both the art of socialising, and also the motivation, those who fear meeting and engaging with others. What this might look like I am unsure. I have more listening and engaging to do in order to reflect on that and to see what works. I am very sure, however, that the chaplaincies might be in a really strong position in order to start this work, in a small way at first, but hopefully with increasing confidence over time. I will keep talking and keep listening and see if I have the opportunity to put some of this into action.