The importance of safe, brave and facilitated spaces in student-staff partnerships - finding a space for compassion

This study focuses on the importance of having a safe space, brave space and a facilitated space in student-staff partnerships. The importance of having a facilitated space of drop-ins and workshops supporting students pastorally was investigated as part of an initiative called the Inclusive Practice Partnerships (IPP) Scheme, drawing on compassionate pedagogies. Healey et al.'s partnership framework is used as a conceptual lens to inform analysis. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with students and staff to investigate their experiences of attending facilitated drop-in and workshop sessions and how this enhanced their overall experience of partnership. Thematic cross-sectional content analysis of the interview data was conducted adopting pre and open coding. Findings highlight the importance of wellbeing support, sharing experiences, building resilience and providing personal development opportunities. Discussion and recommendations from the findings are shared to inform practitioners seeking to develop support for students working in partnership in colleges and universities in national and international contexts.