Mentor Training
Mentors are trained by Genius Within, a social enterprise set up to support neurodiverse people ‘unlock their talents, whilst acknowledging and celebrating that this diversity forms part of the rich tapestry of human experience’.
This training explored different areas of neurodiversity and the strategies and models that can best support students, including sessions on Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia and Dysgraphia; ADHD & Mental Health Conditions including depression, stress and anxiety; and Autism Spectrum Conditions.
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Some strategies and models discussed include:
-- Clean Language: The clean feedback model was designed by Nancy Doyle and Caitlin Walker in 2003 and designed around business coaching, where the quality of feedback was an issue.
There was a dissatisfaction with the models available and therefore they designed the model to allow them to give positive and negative feedback, but also to provide a developmental task as Levy and Williams proposed in business contexts that managers often hated giving feedback, they tended to edge around negative issues, over-generalise, and fail to give sufficient details of what is required to improve.
The clean feedback model aims to provide a structure for high quality, clear, task-level feedback. It is sensory specific, that is, it refers the individual to what they have seen or heard through their senses, rather than what they have made up or interpreted from data. An individual needs to know exactly how they did something wrong, so that they can avoid the behaviour in the future. Equally, how exactly did they do the task correctly, so they can repeat it?
-- Circles of control: The basic idea is that instead of spending a lot of energy thinking about and getting angry about things you don’t influence (like the weather, or the economy, or the environment), you spend your energy and time on things you do influence.
-- Drama to Calmer: Based on the Drama Triangle which was first described by Stephen Karpman in the 1960s. It is a model of dysfunctional social interactions and illustrates a power game that involves three roles: Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor, each role represents a common and ineffective response to conflict.
-- Mind Management & Triune Brain: This model suggests there are different sections of the brain. Each one has a different role and therefore different responses. Very important to consider in mentoring situations. The neurologist Paul MacLean has proposed that our skull holds not one brain, but three, each representing a distinct evolutionary stage that has formed upon the older layer before it, like an archaeological site. Triune brain theory is about understanding the basic needs that drive our behaviour and can lead to misinterpretation.
