Dilemma - HE Specialist Mentor, WWYD?

[groaninginto23]

Posting here for traffic, temporary NC as a semi-regular poster.

Will try to keep as brief as I can. I'm a mature student with the OU, in the second year of my degree. As I'm autistic and have ADHD I was allocated support/reasonable adjustments, a bit of an uphill battle to get in the first place but glad I did. Software, etc. has been mostly great. (Yay for Grammarly!) My Study Skills Tutor is wonderful and I'm glad I have the same one this year - I asked specifically for this person again and hope to remain with them for the rest of my degree. For context I work full time and work my hours around meeting with this tutor once a fortnight for 2 hours in the morning, which works really well. It was a bit of a battle to get work to agree to this but that's another story. Nevertheless, I still work my allocated hours flexibly so some compromise.

This academic year I was allocated a Specialist Mentor at 1 hour a week. I wasn't sure what they would be doing and I'm still not sure this far into the year. Not being rude but it's mainly chatting which I don't necessarily have the energy for after a full day's work. The conversation is usually steered by me (which I find very difficult as a ND person) and I often get a run down of this person's health issues (pot, kettle, black - like I can talk here, my health is a mess 😆) and general chit chat, with them trying to gauge my mood, feelings, etc. But I'm not sure there's any real structure to it all.

I've been very under the weather the last few months and often my "mask" is off by the end of the day, so I can't really do niceties. I have been in tears on a few occasions due to demands of work, life admin, etc. and it's making me uncomfortable to potentially be vulnerable again. But unlike with counselling, etc. there is no signposting or solutions.

I thought there were supposed to be outcomes, deliverables, etc. but in all honesty I'm getting nothing out of this. They're pleasant enough but it's not benefitting me the way my Study Skills Tutor does. And I'm meant to be checking in with them tomorrow night, but feeling awkward about it. I'm also conscious that they would be losing income as they've touched on this before when they had to reschedule due to being ill. WWYD?

Sorry for the essay, didn't mean it to be this long 😳

I work in student support and often refer students to these mentors via the DSA which I assume this is. They are of hugely varying quality, and the good ones make a massive difference. The weaker ones are... as you describe.

Is your mentor provided by your university or by an external company? If it's through a company (ours seem to be usually Randstad or Clearlinks, but there are many others) then they are usually really good at finding people a new mentor if they're not happy with the one they have. A starting point would be to get in touch with DSA and say that you're not finding the allocated mentor helpful, and ask to swap. They're provided to help you, not to make things harder. Dsa are paying out and they don't want to pay for support that doesn't help. Getting the right person can make a world of difference, and it's perfectly acceptable to swap and try new ones if it isn't working for you.

@ShinyMe, thanks for your reply. My Mentor is provided by Clear Links, same as my Study Skills Tutor. So I assume they should be my first port of call, or should I contact the DSA assessors?

I'm just hoping if anything is actioned that they (Mentor) won't contact me directly as they have been doing. I know I'm supposed to give notice re. rescheduling, so I might just advise that I'm unwell and skip tomorrow's. I feel like a teenager bunking off lessons!

Without perhaps outing who the person is somehow, it seems their specialism is dyslexia and in schools, so not sure how they were allocated me in all honesty.

Ooh I found ClearLinks to be brilliant in terms of their overall management. I would do exactly what you suggest, tell this person you're ill and will need to reschedule. Then contact Cleak Links on a general contact email and explain why you're not finding it useful, and ask if they can look at finding a new contact for you. I've done exactly this when one of my students disliked her CL person, and the management was straight on it, and got her a new one who was much better. It took a couple of weeks, but it happened. If the existing person starts contacting you, refer it to CL if they're being funny about it or pressuring you, CL won't stand for that!

Thanks Shiny - will do that now. I'll use much of what was in my post, but in a more softly softly way. Thanks again 😊

No problem! Good luck! Remember, they're being paid to give you a service, it's in CL interests to get it right because if you complain to DSA then dsa could move you to another company. Just because you aren't directly paying them yourself doesn't make your opinion any less important.