Statistics of number of parents / nominated persons contacted by university regarding student mental wellbeing.

The request was successful.

Dear University of Sheffield,
Student ‘opt-in’ or ‘consent at registration’ was a hot topic in 2018. Essentially it involves lowering the bar at which parents or nominated others could be contacted by a university, when there are serious concerns that something bad might happen to an enrolled student, and/or where their health, wellbeing or welfare could be affected.
To qualify as ‘opt-in’ a scheme must be optional and additional to any compulsory emergency contact protocol. The latter is typically restricted to serious incidents and/or emergency situations, that may present an imminent threat to a student’s vital interests. Modifying your compulsory emergency contact protocol is not ‘opt-in’, it is ‘opt-out’, since action would be required to withdraw consent.
This important policy has been implemented at a number of universities, and presumably at your institution as well. If so, please provide me with the following more detailed information:

• How many students were registered at your institution for each of the academic periods
2018-19,
2019-20 and
2020-21?
Please provide the above information according to year-of-study e.g. 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year

For each academic period and year-of-study sub-division:
• How many students opted-in at registration?
• How many students subsequently rescinded their consent?
• How many times was the opt-in consent used to contact somebody?
• How many times was use of the opt-in consent considered, but with you deliberately choosing not to contact a parent or nominated individual?

Yours faithfully,

Gillian Green

Dear University of Sheffield,
I am writing to remind you of my FOI request which should have been answered by 5th March.
I understand that times are difficult, so this is just a polite reminder,

Yours faithfully,

Gillian Green

Dear University of Sheffield,
I am writing to remind you of my FOI request which should have been answered by now. Could you please confirm that you received it?
I understand that times are difficult, so this is just a polite reminder.
Yours faithfully,

Gillian Green

Freedom Of Information, University of Sheffield

Dear Gillian 
Thank you for your query, and apologies that you haven't received a
response from us. I wanted to confirm that we are working to establish
whether the requested information is held with relevant teams, and hope to
be in touch again with a full response once we have confirmation of this. 
Best wishes
Elspeth
On Thu, 15 Apr 2021 at 12:08, Gillian Green <[1][FOI #727290 email]>
wrote:

Dear University of Sheffield,
I am writing to remind you of my FOI request which should have been
answered by now. Could you please confirm that you received it?
I understand that times are difficult, so this is just a polite
reminder.
Yours faithfully,

Gillian Green

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Dear Freedom Of Information,
The request is long overdue.
While I understand times are difficult, I would appreciate an early response as it has been months since I first contacted you.

Yours sincerely,

Gillian Green

Freedom Of Information, University of Sheffield

Dear Gillian
Thank you for your message. We have reminded the relevant team of your
original request. We apologise that you have had to follow up your request
again. 
Best wishes
Elspeth
On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 at 12:04, Gillian Green <[1][FOI #727290 email]>
wrote:

Dear Freedom Of Information,
The request is long overdue.
While I understand times are difficult, I would appreciate an early
response as it has been months since I first contacted you.

Yours sincerely,

Gillian Green

show quoted sections

Freedom Of Information, University of Sheffield

Dear Gillian
I am writing to provide a response to your FOI request. I apologise for
the length of time it has taken for you to receive a response, and that
you have had to follow up your request on more than one occasion.
Colleagues have advised that:
The University of Sheffield does not operate student “opt-in” or “consent
at registration” to share information with a third party. On an ad hoc and
individual case by case basis, there are situations where a member of
staff may ask a student to consent to us sharing their information, and
this is ordinarily captured by email. However, there is no mechanism to
reliably collect statistics about this, and therefore we are unable to
provide numbers of students who have consented.
If you are not satisfied with the University's response to your FOI
request, please see details of our internal review process [1]here, as
well as information on how to contact the Information Commissioner's
Office for an independent review.
Best wishes
Elspeth
On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 15:16, Gillian Green <[2][FOI #727290 email]>
wrote:

Dear University of Sheffield,
Student ‘opt-in’ or ‘consent at registration’ was a hot topic in 2018.
Essentially it involves lowering the bar at which parents or nominated
others could be contacted by a university, when there are serious
concerns that something bad might happen to an enrolled student, and/or
where their health, wellbeing or welfare could be affected.
To qualify as ‘opt-in’ a scheme must be optional and additional to any
compulsory emergency contact protocol. The latter is typically
restricted to serious incidents and/or emergency situations, that may
present an imminent threat to a student’s vital interests. Modifying
your compulsory emergency contact protocol is not ‘opt-in’, it is
‘opt-out’, since action would be required to withdraw consent.
This important policy has been implemented at a number of universities,
and presumably at your institution as well. If so, please provide me
with the following more detailed information:

•       How many students were registered at your institution for each
of the academic periods
2018-19,
2019-20 and
2020-21?
Please provide the above information according to year-of-study e.g. 1st
year, 2nd year, 3rd year

For each academic period and year-of-study sub-division:
•       How many students opted-in at registration?
•       How many students subsequently rescinded their consent?
•       How many times was the opt-in consent used to contact somebody?
•       How many times was use of the opt-in consent considered, but
with you deliberately choosing not to contact a parent or nominated
individual?

Yours faithfully,

Gillian Green

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[3][FOI #727290 email]

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on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
[6]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/offi...

For more detailed guidance on safely disclosing information, read the
latest advice from the ICO:
[7]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...

Please note that in some cases publication of requests and responses
will be delayed.

If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web
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