Sarah's Blog: My ASRA Conference Experience

By BinaryFold4 Limited • 30 March 2022

Sarah Baker from The Anaphylaxis Campaign talks us through her ASRA Conference experience!

Sarah's Blog

At Conference Melissa and I talked about supporting students with serious allergy and at risk of anaphylaxis. We hope we put across the main messages around what is allergy and anaphylaxis and how university accommodation providers can support students with allergies and what adjustments to the accommodation they can make.

The ASRA team were very welcoming, and attendees of our session were all engaged and despite us over running by 20 minutes no-one left the session. Whilst Melissa was talking you could hear a pin drop in the room so powerful were her messages. After the session a few remained to give good feedback and ask further questions.

The session aimed to provide participants with information about what Anaphylaxis is, the impact it can have on students, and offer food for thought as to what ASRA members can do as university accommodation providers to support students live and study safely in respect of their allergies. The Highlight of the session was Melissa’s reflections & personal experiences relating to her sister Samantha Sarah Singh.

We enjoyed visiting the exhibition and made some key contacts with Student Essential, Studentpad, Circuit who we have since had on going conversations with. We both felt very welcomed and enjoyed the day we were there and given our presentation was very different to most of the others we believe that our messaging was very well received, and we hope will make a positive impact for students with allergies.

ASRA is a collection of organisations all working together to support students living in accommodation whilst studying. We hope to continue our involvement and work with ASRA to share messaging and learning regarding students with allergy and how ASRA members can support them. 

More about The Anaphylaxis Campaign