Specialist 1:1 Study Skills Support is individual support for learners with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), which may include Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Dyscalculia. Support is mapped to the specific needs of the learner in relation to their apprenticeship course and the required KSBs of their training programme. Study Skills Support will additionally target difficulties with acquiring, recalling, and retaining information in written and spoken language. Memory, organisational, attention and numeracy difficulties are often also worked on. Using a range of multi-sensory strategies to facilitate independent learning, sessions will be tailored to work on the identified needs of specific learners to enable learners to identify their own learning styles and strengths. Independent learning is promoted as well as empowering the learner to manage their workload across both the theoretical and work-based placement components of their course.

Study Skills Tutors can help with:

• time management and organisational skills
• efficient strategies for reading academic texts
• note taking from texts, hand-outs and in lectures
• research skills
• mind mapping and planning techniques
• proof reading strategies
• approaching written assignments
• memory techniques and strategies
• revision methods
• analysing exam/essay questions

Wellbeing and Mental Health mentors provide specialist, one-to-one support which helps learners address the barriers to learning. The support could address a range of issues, for example:

• coping with anxiety and stressful situations
• how to deal with concentration difficulties
• time management
• goal setting
• timetabling
• prioritising workload
• creating a suitable work-life balance

Specialist mentoring is not counselling. The role of the mentor is to help learners recognise the barriers to learning and support them in developing strategies to address these barriers, particularly at times of transition and possible high stress, e.g., when starting at a new work-based placement or working towards end-point assessments. For some learners, this support will need to be on-going, while for others it might be gradually phased out or only be required at certain points of their course.

Mentors can work with learners with a range of mental health difficulties, including:

• depression
• anxiety
• eating disorders
• bipolar disorder
• psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia
• obsessive compulsive disorder etc

Specialist autism and ADHD Mentors hold in-depth knowledge and practical strategies to work alongside autistic and ADHD apprentices to support them succeed in their studies and work placements. Through psychoeducation, allowing the learner to better understand how autism and /or ADHD impacts on their learning, targeted plans to assist the learner develop the required knowledge, skills, and behaviour (KSBs) in their apprenticeship course can be achieved. Improved psychoeducation can allow the individual to better work to their strengths as well as better advocate their needs in terms of reasonable adjustments. Work placements can bring a wealth of challenges for autistic and ADHD learners and working with a specialist mentor to manage transitions, work-based socialising, professional expectations alongside the course requirements can allow the learner to build sustainable strategies around experienced difficulties. The aim is to gradually reduce the need for specialist mentoring support as the learner builds their own skills, so that they can fully engage in their academic life and integrate successfully into the workplace on leaving their education.

Our mentors typically assist with such things as:

• managing change and difficult emotions
• dealing with challenging social situations
• developing social and communication skills
• clarifying course expectations in relation to set KSBs on the apprenticeship course
• having a healthy work/life balance
• accessing academic support and guidance
• managing course requirements (e.g., speaking in seminars, giving presentations, professional meetings)
• Developing self-awareness and self-advocacy
• advising on quiet (low-sensory) study spaces
• any other issues that the learner brings to the sessions