Homestretch: a Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences co-produced approach to supporting PhD students through COVID-19 lockdown

I remember meeting my yoga teacher on the street after the first hard lockdown. Being out on the street, meeting someone I knew came as a subtle shock, particularly as I was just coming out of a month long battle with a bout of Covid myself. We talked about how strange the time had been, about missing the shared space of the yoga studio and the small social acts the surround a class. I’ve thought again and again about one of the things she said, that when we come through Covid we will be a long time realising what it’s effects are and recovering what we can from the many kinds of loss.
We are still in that process both of distancing and trying to reconnect. What follows is the account of the development of a series of support sessions held every Wednesday through the second hard lock down through winter. We called the series Homestretch, hoping that it would indeed get isolated students through the homestretch of this difficult time, as well as invite them to both
stretch and be at home in shared space for a few minutes on a Wednesday over lunch time. The voice is primarily Beth’s but the knowledge was gained alongside Patricia, Jingyang, Diane and Geoffrey. What follows traces the back story to the project, it’s development as Covid gained its grip on the country and a sketch of what we’ve experienced and learned as we’ve “built the plane whilst
flying it”—something in so many ways all of us have had to do this past year.