Our Engagement: Preston College Freshers Fair
Preston College Freshers Fair was back this year as an opportunity for new and returning students to network, discover local services and career paths. Healthwatch Lancashire has been to the fresher’s fair in the past and we were delighted to see the expansion of the event with a much larger variety of organisations taking part this year.
This included:
- PNE FC Community Engagement Trust
- Street Pastors
- Nest
- Sexual Health Service
- Smoke Free Lancashire
- Carers UK
- Papyrus
- Samaritans
At the event, we spoke to 36 individuals about Healthwatch, their local services and ongoing projects. We also used this as an opportunity to network with other organisations, including Papyrus.
We were lucky to meet a member of the Preston Street Pastors and hear about the amazing work they carry out on the Streets of Preston on Friday and Saturday nights. They are all trained Volunteers who go out onto the Streets of Preston from 10.30 at night to the early hours, assisting people in distress or maybe just had a few too many drinks. Their work sounded incredibly rewarding and beneficial for the local community and is something we would love to support in the future.
We met some students who explained that they were supported by college staff, and some of them shared the difficulties they had experienced obtaining a diagnosis and waiting ages for assessments. We signposted them to some organisations we think best could support them; the issues ranged from dentistry to general support.
The majority of feedback we receive is usually around GP services, and this was common at the freshers’ fair. We heard from students about GP experiences, which were mainly positive, but some expressed that they struggled with securing a GP appointment and the process involved waiting on the phone for a GP appointment.
One member of staff at the college highly praised a walk-in Clinic for the care her elderly mother had received.
We are grateful to Preston College for putting on this event and allowing us to connect with other local organisations and their student network.