Enabling nursing and healthcare students to join the NHS workforce, offering staff paid leave to take up emergency volunteering roles and supporting colleagues to assist hospitals in testing for the coronavirus, are some of the ways Sheffield Hallam University is supporting the effort to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
The response follows the announcement that Sheffield Hallam has been chosen to host the UPP Foundation’s Civic University Network, where the first priority will be to co-ordinate a sector wide response to the social and economic challenges presented by the coronavirus.
In light of this, the University is encouraging staff who wish to take up emergency volunteering roles to support the Covid-19 response, by providing paid time off work in the form of emergency volunteering leave to make a difference to the community in which we work and live, offering support when it is most needed.
The University has also donated personal protective equipment and specialist cleaning products, including face masks and hand sanitiser, to a local GP surgery and 80kg of fresh produce to FoodWorks, a Sheffield based social enterprise that aims to reduce food waste by collecting produce destined for landfill and making it available to people across the city. Food donations have also been made to the Salvation Army and the Archer Project.
Sally Pearse, head of early years education in the Sheffield Institute of Education, is also working with Trauma Informed Schools, a not for profit educational organisation, which aims to support children and teenagers who have suffered trauma or have mental health problems, to pull together resources for teachers and parents of children no longer at school.
The resources will support parents to follow the trauma informed practice to support children suffering with anxiety in these unprecedented times.
Vice Chancellor, Professor Sir Chris Husbands said: “I want to thank everyone who is working on the front line in our region – the nurses, paramedics and all healthcare professionals, social care workers and teachers, council workers, supermarket staff and charities all working above and beyond in extremely challenging circumstances. We are incredibly grateful to this army of key workers who are more vital than ever.
“Right now, the scale of the challenge to our economy and society, to livelihoods and wellbeing, is enormous. Sheffield Hallam is rooted in this community and we are committed to doing everything we can to support the city and region in responding to this unprecedented crisis.”
Staff from the Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre also have offered to support the testing process for COVID-19 in Sheffield Teaching Hospitals by offering their time and equipment whilst NHS staff will be able to park freely at our Collegiate Campus.
The department of engineering and mathematics has also offered their 3D printing equipment to create parts for protective face visors.
