Specialist Mental Health Mentors
About the role and its impact.
About
Specialist Mental Health Mentoring is a student-focused and needs led support mechanism for students with Mental Health Conditions. This is primarily accessed and funded through Disabled Students' Allowances.
The Department of Education have defined the Specialist Mental Health Mentor role in their NMH Mandatory Qualifications document. This can be found on the Student Loans Company webpage:
The purpose of the Specialist Mentor (SM:MH) role is to support students in accessing their higher education (HE) studies by:
• Supporting students in understanding what is required of them academically in higher education. • Identifying barriers to the student’s learning.
• Helping students to develop effective organisation and time management skills and strategies to manage their workload and deadlines in the presence of their mental health condition.
• Helping students with prioritisation and realistic goal setting, including producing plans of work and targets.
• Developing a support programme to facilitate the growth of the student’s independence, reducing the need for support in the longer term.
The SM:MH must not offer any subject-specific support or tutoring, or any counselling or therapeutic support relating to the student’s mental health condition. These are outside the remit of the SM:MH role.
It is expected that SM:MHs should have an understanding of different mental health conditions and the impact they may have on the student accessing their studies. This can include, for example, personality disorders, eating disorders, phobias, depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, psychosis (including schizophrenia), addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and identity issues. SM:MHs should also have an understanding and awareness of students with more complex presentations of multiple disabilities such as specific learning difficulties, long-term health conditions, or autism alongside a mental health condition.
SM:MHs should be alert to and follow up on concerns relating to the students they support. For example:
• The student is showing signs of disengagement or growing vulnerability (e.g. lack of attendance, late submission or non-submission of work, disciplinary issues, etc.).
• The student is showing warning signs such as: suicidal thoughts, actions, or plans; self-harm, including cutting; and threats of involvement in terrorism.
SM:MHs should be aware of the support offered by the HEP and by external organisations such as the NMH provider and make the appropriate onward referrals in a crisis.
SM:MHs should be able to understand and manage professional boundaries, establishing and maintaining productive working relationships with students while understanding the importance of professional record-keeping and confidentiality.
SM:MHs must work with students in a sensitive and empathetic manner and respond positively and calmly to students in distress. Professional listening, observation and communication skills are essential.
In reality, we know that mentoring practice can vary, depending on the practitioner's training and experience, with some mentors being stronger in some areas than others because of this.
All Specialist Mentors are subject to the current quality assurance framework for Disabled Students' Allowances, as recognised by the Department of Education (also available in the link above).
Impact
Our previous Chair, Dr. Anna Matthews, has written a report about the impact of mentoring 'The Role and Impact of Specialist Mental Health Mentoring on Students in UK Higher Education Institutes'.
In this important document she clearly defines the differences between mentoring and counselling, and uses feedback to describe the positive impact mentoring can have on functioning, performance and experience of students with mental health conditions.
See also an article from Lucas and James (2018) - An evaluation of specialist mentoring for university students with autism spectrum disorders and mental health conditions.
Image by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash.
