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).
