After serving as Welfare Officer for Trinity Hall Junior Common Room (JCR), John Garvey is ready to take on welfare on a bigger scale. The final year English and History student from Mayo is campaigning for the role of Welfare officer against three other candidates.
I sat down with Garvey to better understand his experience, passion, and vision for the role. Garvey tells me the role appeals to him as he loved the equivalent role he held in the JCR. During his tenure as Welfare Officer he gained knowledge that he sees as invaluable to the sabbatical role including case-work serving on the Welfare and Equality Committee, as well as working with previous welfare officers.
Garvey tells me a large part of his vision for the role of Welfare officer would be to bring back Welfare Campaign weeks. He says that there needs to be a better balance between the bigger events and more individual welfare such as closed space events. “Students might not all suit a Pav Friday, not everybody is that kind of student”. Garvey believes campaign weeks such as SHAG or Rainbow week were pulled back because they didn’t have the same attendance of larger events but he says this is not a great metric to judge the usefulness or the necessity. Giving the example of a campaign week including a conversation about PReP, Garvey says “If one student gets something out of that, that’s the metric we need to value. Garvey tells me he would like to work with Ents to create specific and closed space events for women, non-binary and queer people, to “broaden the scope of what Ents is”. He sees this push for continued large-scale events and more specific ones as marrying two aspects of welfare.
Garvey shares this experience as Welfare Officer for the JCR makes him well-suited for the role as he has done case-work and even planned and ran a campaign week before. He has also served as class representative and worked with previous Welfare Officers as part of the Welfare and Equality Committee, saying that this gives him a good idea into how the job works.
Accessibility is also a priority for Garvey and his campaign. Garvey hopes, if elected, to work with the company Dancefloor Intimacy to make clubbing more accessible. Garvey tells me this push for accessibility focuses on crucial aspects like how security works and respite spaces, saying there’s a lot more to accessibility than just getting people in the building.
In a similar vein, Garvey also hopes to expand the work of the Dignity, Respect, and Consent team whose workshops, he says, are currently only available in Halls. “In terms of feasibility” he tells, “I think the workshops are the best way to get that information across, if a student can ask a question, or even just be engaged. Garvey also plans to implement an online module, with pages of resources for sexual assault and harrassment as well bystander intervention training.
In fact, in Garvey’s first month as welfare officer, his expansion of Dignity, Respect, and Consent would be top of his list. He says that within counselling services, the first month of college is referred to the red zone in regards to sexual violence. Garvey says, during this time, it’s crucial that “training is available as widely as possible, as quickly as possible. Because I think that at the moment, just being in halls is not good enough. I think it needs to be pushed further.
Garvey also hopes to provide better support for student parents. He shares that due to the fact that they have different midterms than the rest of the students, parents are forced to pay for extra childminding during that period. Garvey sees an opportunity for improvement by working with TCD Sports who hold camps during midterms. He tells me that if student parents were able to reserve spots for their children beforehand, they may feel more supported by the college.
Accommodation is also on Garvey’s manifesto which includes points about continuing working with the Accommodation Advisory Service. He hopes to better help students who live off campus, as well as protesting and lobbying for students rights when necessary.
Garvey praises the SU for their campaign focus, particularly current Welfare Officer, Hamza Bana, saying he has “done great things for diversity”. Garvey adds that Bana is very good at being there for students and is a friendly face around campus, something he calls “a very important part of the job”. The Welfare officer, as Garvey sees it, should “fight within college for the kind of people who are under your purview”.
As well as this, Garvey mentions collaboration as a key aspect of the role as well as simply knowing the system, someone who is “dedicated to student mental health and can fight within college over issues” he says. He plans to work closely with the future Education Officer, telling me “if a student is struggling with a LENS report due to disability or divergency, the education officer and the welfare officer work together in those situations in terms of student cases”.
Garvey additionally calls the SU’s push for the Irish language as “really impressive” and that “their attitude to it has been perfect, like, everything is translated”. If he were to hold the role of Welfare Officer, he would prioritise the language by “making sure that there is Irish at every event, so that we don’t lose this language” as well as translating all documents.
In addition to working closely with the Oifigeach na Gaeilge, Garvey sees plenty of future collaboration with the new Ents officer. Garvey says that though this might not be a “typical thing”, he sees lots of room to work together especially when it comes to training the Ents team in issues under his purview like accessibility and sexual violence training. He calls this future collaboration for better accessibility something that “out of all the positions, something that I’m most excited about”.
Garvey tells me that when it comes to fighting for students, “I am very passionate about the things I want to change” and that he is “more than willing” to work for that change. Campaigning has begun this week on Monday the 17th and will continue until next Friday. Fill out the University Times Election Poll here: https://forms.office.com/e/E1DHa3XmB0
