This article contains information about the Personalised Approach to the Transition of Health and Support (PATHS).
What is the purpose of PATHS?
The transition to university can be exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. We know, both from research and from our own students, that people who are neurodiverse and/or who have a mental health disability can find this time especially overwhelming. How we feel and how we manage can change from situation to situation, and depend on whether we’re somewhere familiar, or somewhere new. Transition means that we may need to prepare to make adjustments so that we continue to manage things as well as we can.
The purpose of PATHS is to help you understand the sorts of things which might be important to consider when you’re starting university, both what to prepare for in advance, and also about what will be available to support your health and wellbeing when you join.
PATHS asks you what your personal experiences are, and then makes suggestions or provides information based on the answers you give.
PATHS will provide you with personalised advice, resources and guidance from both King’s own services, as well as from trusted external sources such as Student Minds, Mind and the NHS.
Information about completing PATHS
Why have I been sent PATHS?
The University has been told that you have a disability, and PATHS is part of how we want to help you to think about what you might need when you come to King’s.
How long will PATHS take?
It will vary depending on how many sections you complete but we suggest you should allow up to an hour. You can do it on your mobile phone or on a computer, and it can be done on your own, or with someone you trust.
It's not a test, and there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers so if you mainly put ‘I don’t know’ then that’s fine. You also don’t have to do it all in one go, and you can ‘bookmark’ where you got to, and come back to it later. We know that there's a lot of information in PATHS, so do it at your own pace.
You will get a copy of your results, and the information the toolkit suggested for you, so don’t worry that you are supposed to remember it all!
What sort of questions does PATHS include?
PATHS covers some of the topics which are the most important to consider when you are planning to start University. PATHS asks about your condition and how you currently manage things, as well as thinking about what will be different for you at university.
PATHS will also suggest some ideas for how you can ensure that you come to King’s with a better understanding of what is on offer and how we can support you.
There are some sections of PATHS which are aimed at everyone, but there are others which are optional and you only need to complete the parts which feel relevant to you.
Who will see my information?
That completely depends on you. PATHS gives you the option to share what you want, with who you want. It also gives you the option to ask that we delete all your data.
There is the option to select ‘Prefer not to say’ for many questions, so it is not all or nothing. You can choose not to share details of your personal experience where you don’t want to, and you will still get a response from PATHS which provides advice and guidance in relation to that topic.
We want you to feel in control of how much information you are sharing, and how you use the toolkit, as although it will be helpful to the university to see where there are issues which come up most often for people, the main purpose of PATHS is for you to understand more about your transition to university.
We hope that completing PATHS helps you to feel confident and better informed about coming to university. There will likely still be many more questions you have, but we hope that this is a good start.
