Mental Health Mentoring Supervision I offer supervision to university mental health mentors who
work with students, within and outside the DSA funded framework. I have adapted
my counselling supervision model to fit the practice and approach to mental
health mentoring.
What is a mentor? One Greek definition of a mentoring is 'enduring', with a
mentor who is, 'a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher'. Central to my own
thinking and approach to mentoring relationships is the value of my own inner
wisdom, grown from a lifetime of failures and disappointments; and discovery of
unknown capability and talents. I am a great believer in learning from other
people's wisdom and life experience (friends, clients and colleagues) and using
this for the benefit of mentees, selectively and timely, to inspire student
mentees to connect to their own inner wisdom and self-knowledge, disconnected
strength and capability. There is a freedom to bring more of myself, with
appropriate transparency, to enhance the person-to-person element of the
mentoring relationship. We are two people in the world trying our best with
what we know, to live a life of fullness.
“A mentor
facilitates personal and professional growth in an individual by sharing the
knowledge and insights that have been learned through the years. The desire to
want to share these 'ife experiences' is characteristic of a successful
mentor”. (Arizona National Guard)
Student - mentees have consistently fed back to me, the
value of sharing my own struggles, such as dropping out of university, re-engaging
as a mature student, the adverse part of perfectionism, the experience of
anxiety and depression, or the burden of being the first in a working-class
family to go to university. Aspects of these experiences are shared in
appropriate ways, to address moments of shame and inequality experienced by
mentees disclosing their difficulties, and to offer hope in the possibility of
what can be overcome. Mentoring can focus on more than the academic/university
experience of mentees, as students also grapple with the philosophical
questions of life, purpose and meaning.
The opportunities to work in an expansive way (use of
'self') as a mentor can feel very freeing, in comparison with the role of a
psychotherapist or counsellor.
My University mentoring experience
I was a self-employed specialist mentor at SOAS University
from 2011-2017, then took up a job-share
role as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisor, until 2020. My colleague and I
made the decision to stop being a DSA NMH provider, and developed our in-house
mentoring service for all SOAS students. Becoming a mentor was a natural
expansion upon my work in the voluntary sector as a counselling manager,
nurturing and encouraging the
development of volunteer and paid counsellors to develop their skills,
tools and professional identities.
“Mentors listen objectively and act
as a sounding board. They ask questions that encourage mentees to look at
issues from a variety of perspectives and focus on problem-solving,
decision-making and solutions. They challenge traditional ways of thinking and
encourage strategies outside of their mentee's comfort zone.” (Mentor support
network, Australia)
Developing a mentoring approach in response to students with
presenting mental health difficulties is a challenge. Whether you come from a
therapeutic, social work or educational background, work within a university or
for a private provider, additional dynamics also need navigating. These can
include:
Holding and containing students in need of NHS psychological
services and where student counselling is not appropriate Issues with being able to liaise with university
departments, to advocate, navigating university procedures and systems and
having a consistent safe space to work with students Managing and acting upon disclosures of risk by
students The impact of Covid-19, working online and how
this exacerbates student mental health Developing tools and an approach to help
students overcome the barriers to their academic success, including their
capacity to engage with and use mentoring in a proactive way Personal, identity, relational, disability and
neurodiverse experiences that intersect with the student’s mental health and
ability to thrive in a learning environment Working with international students, cultural
expectations and experiences unique to them “The outcome of successful
mentoring is development of the person being mentored. By definition, then, a
mentor is someone who successfully develops someone else.” (Investors in People).
My learning from student has been that they share many
similar difficulties, whether they have a formal diagnosis or not. I advocate
developing a relational, transparent and person to person mentoring experience,
where we can utilise our own educational and personal experiences to model what
is possible to overcome and passing on new tools to help mentees become
self-reliant individuals. And that there are many pathways to success, however
one defines success. Mentoring is as much about how we can live our full lives
as it is about achieving a degree or becoming ready for the world of work.
My approach has drawn upon educational research (motivation,
perfectionism etc), psychotherapy research, positive psychology (including the
skills of resilience), utilising psycho-education, my knowledge of nutrition,
sleep disorder, and life skills. I have developed and led workshops on topics
such as:
'Fear of failure and resistance to nourishing
change' 'Personal resilience: the skills and attitudes
that help us respond to adversity', 'Becoming the more organised you' 'The
relationship between purpose and feelings of accomplishment' 'Mental health and wellbeing for PhD students' I also wrote an online training module for the Doctoral
School, 'A Doctoral supervisor guide to Mental Health and Wellbeing'.
If you are seeking supervision for your mentoring role and
would like to discuss your individual needs, please get in touch. The fee is
£60 per 50-minute appointment, and can be offered face to face or online.
NB. I am currently a Doctoral candidate on the
Metanoia programme, 'Doctorate in Psychotherapy by Professional Studies.' My
current research is focused on an 'Inquiry into the experience of mental health
mentors working with students who have mental health difficulties'(2020).
