In these times, volunteering and working together has never been so important to ourselves and local communities. With the recent government announcement of the national lockdown, Winchester Hubs wanted to update you on the measures we are taking to support our programme delivery, students, and communities. To read our Student Hubs National Lockdown update, please click here.

Programme delivery

As with previous lockdown, we will be offering remote volunteering only so that we can ensure the safety of our community and our volunteers, and ensure we are not putting you at unnecessary risk.

  • Any in-person delivery of volunteering that was being planned for this semester has been reviewed, and Hub staff will be in touch with students to confirm whether this programme will be converted to virtual or be postponed;
  • All of our programmes which we planned to run virtually will continue with minimal disruption, we are looking forward to working with you!

We know how beneficial our programmes can be for students to continue to connect with other students and their university community, so our priority is to ensure that programmes are able to run in an accessible format for the rest of the term.

If you have any concerns, please contact us at [email protected].

Supporting our Communities

At Winchester Hub, we recognise that our network can provide a multitude of support and capacity for the community organisations and groups we work with. As a result, we will continue to reach out to the Winchester community to see how we can provide support during the lockdown period, and how we can support communities through core programmes and ad-hoc delivery if required.

Please get in touch with our Hub Manager, Liz Alcock, at [email protected] if you would be interested in accessing our support during the lockdown period or this term.

Supporting our Students

We have also taken several steps to support our students during this national lockdown.

  • We will be running a virtual drop-in, Hub Brew, throughout this semester to provide support for wellbeing during the lockdown period;
  • We are continuing weekly committee meetings to work with our students to best support them and our other volunteers this semester.

Supporting your Wellbeing

We understand this will be a challenging time, going into lockdown for the third time in a year. It is entirely understandable to feel heightened stress, anxiety, and other mental wellbeing concerns during this time. Please find some guidance for wellbeing support below.

  • Student Minds: a student mental health charity with a variety of resources to help you, a family member or a friend. I have listed some below but I recommend going through their website here to find out more.
  • Student Space: this is a bank of resources to help you through the challenges of coronavirus, including studying during coronavirus, friendship and social life, wellbeing and grief and loss. There is also phone, live chat, email and text support available for students. Please look at all their resources and contact details here.
  • Peer Support Programmes: they run groups so that students experiencing mental health difficulties have access to a supportive environment in which they can talk about life and university. You can find out more about peer support programmes here.
  • Nightline: this is a confidential, anonymous, non-judgmental, non-directive and non-advisory support service run by students for students. Lines are open from 6pm-8am during term time. Call 0207 631 0101 or text 07717 989 900 for support.
  • Winchester Student Services offer a variety of financial, housing and general student support. At the moment, the Wellbeing team are offering the services below, of which more information can be found here.

We will continue to update everyone we work with on changes to delivery, and support, throughout the next few months. From all of us at Student Hubs, we encourage you to stay safe and keep well during this time.