Emily Delaney is running for VP Welfare and Community.
Her two-year experience in Pendle College as a Welfare Officer has provided Emily with experience in a welfare and community role.
If elected, her aim is to improve the support for JCR Welfare Officers from the Student’s Union. She believes the current system focuses too much on campaigns and that more training is needed on how to deal with situations where students approach Welfare Officers with a confidential problem.
As a Welfare Officer in Pendle since her first year at university, Emily argues that her unique selling pointing is her experience: “I know how to run a campaign, I know what works, what doesn’t work and how to get people engaged.”
If elected, Emily says that she wants to sort the Welfare system and believes there is not enough cohesion between liberation groups, cultural, religious societies, welfare officers and wellbeing advisors. To counter this, she proposes to hold biweekly meetings where liberation groups, welfare officers, cultural and religious groups can meet, exchange ideas and cater events specifically to colleges and communities. This ensures that JCR Welfare Officers will have a good understanding of liberation group campaigns and can then feed this back to their college, gaining more interest and involvement.
Welfare and Community has always been of a large interest of Emily’s and is something she studies in her own time: “I’m constantly reading bye-laws and researching… I simply enjoy it.”
Emily believes that the role of VP Welfare and Community is “the next step up” for her because welfare “is something I want to go out and do.”
Although not stated in her manifesto, Delaney told SCAN that she plans to hold open office hours where students can talk about their problems, for she is ultimately “interested in helping the student body.”
When asked whether the University does enough when educating students on consent, Emily believes the University goes far when educating students on consent and argues that “the University doesn’t need to do more but I think there might be better ways to get information out and inform.”
Emily argues that the University provides equal opportunity: “in my own experience, I think the University is good. But that is just my own experience, and this is something, if elected, I will look into … to find out where the issues are, do the legwork and do the research.”
Although unsure of the cost, Emily proposes replacing Circuit, the University’s washing machine operator, as many students dislike it. She argues that the cost of replacing the University’s washing service will not outweigh the benefit as it is a big issue for students; the machines are unreliable and you have to pay for the pre-paid card, which amounts to a lot of money.
In her manifesto, Emily says she will act as a personal welfare officer to Part Time Officers and College Officers but believes she will not be overstretched. She says “this is something I do in my spare time, I do it for fun.”
