Specialist Mentor support

If you have funding through the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) and the University of Derby is your provider, you can book your support with us directly. 

For students who are eligible for DSA, but have not yet applied, read our Applying for DSA webpage or Contact Us at Student Services. 

For students who are not eligible for DSA, please speak to your Disability Advisor for Disability Support. 

To book your first Specialist Mentor session, please contact the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk. 

Visit our Applying for DSA page for support in how to apply for the Disabled Students Allowance prior to starting university. 

Once support is in place, you will receive a DSA2 letter outlining the provider of your Non-Medical Helper. 

If your Non-Medical Helper provider is the University of Derby, please email nmh@derby.ac.uk. Once you have completed enrolment, we can put your support in place.

1.  Please contact the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk to be allocated a Specialist Mentor. 
2. One of the team will get in touch to send you an availability online form to your Unimail account to share the days, times and your format preferences (try to give the widest possible availability as this will expedite the process).
3. You will receive a calendar invite for your first session(s) with your Specialist Mentor.

Specialist Mentor support is usually in place for students  with mental health conditions, ADHD and/or Autism. Study Skills Tutors are usually in place for students with Specific Learning Differences (SpLD), ADHD and/or Autism. 

Specialist Mentors can help with feelings of overwhelm, mental health experiences affecting your studies, self-esteem and image. Whereas, Specialist Study Skills Tutors can help with developing your academic skills including assignment structuring, researching, planning and time management. 

Your Specialist Mentor will meet you online on MS Teams or in-person for your first session. The location of your session will be detailed on your calendar invite.

Your first session will be individualised to you but likely to cover:

• Practical arrangements: agreeing where, when and how often to meet. Your Specialist Mentor will explain the boundaries of the role and ask you to complete your Student Agreement Pack.
• Support arrangements: talking through the support you would benefit from over the coming weeks. To understand the support you may need they will work through an Individual Support Agreement. 

No. If you have requested a face-to-face meeting, your Specialist Mentor will book a room for your meeting and contact you to agree a meeting place for your first session. 

Your number of support sessions will depend on the number of hours you have been allocated through the Disabled Students Allowance or funded by the University of Derby. Usually, sessions are weekly throughout the term. Support can be arranged during the holiday periods, with the exception of the University closure dates (bank holidays and Christmas break). The frequency of your appointments can be increased or decreased through a discussion with your Specialist Mentor. 

If you feel your support is not meeting your needs or you feel you need additional hours, please speak to your Disability Advisor.

Support sessions provided by the University of Derby are recorded using a platform called Connect. You will receive a weekly email to your Unimail account from Connect asking you to confirm whether your session took place or not. This allows the Student Support team to let your funding body know if the support has taken place. To ensure that the Disabled Students Allowance continues to offer you support, you must confirm your sessions. 

If you do not confirm your support in over three weeks, your support will be paused until you have confirmed the sessions. 

To confirm that your sessions either took place or not, please log on to your Connect platform. 

No, the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) will fund the amount of hours agreed on your DSA2 letter. If you have given consent to the DSA, the Student Support team are responsible for invoicing for your sessions directly from your funding body to inform them how many hours have been used. Your only responsibility is confirm your sessions on Connect. 

Please email the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk who will send you a link to reset your password on Connect.  

The Disabled Students Allowance terms and conditions state that they will only fund two missed sessions at short notice (less than 24 hours' notice) or not attended at all in a DSA term. 

The DSA terms run from:

• 1 September - 31 December
• 1 January - 30 April
• 1 May - 31 August

Support can restart at the start of the next DSA term. 

Other forms of specialist support can still continue even if Specialist Mentor support has been paused. 

If you urgently need support and your support has been paused, please contact your Disability Advisor to discuss options. 

You can email your Specialist Mentor directly to cancel a session. Wherever possible, please give over 24 hours' notice to reschedule your support. Please note your Specialist Mentor may not work every day of the week but will reply to your message as soon as they can. 

Alternatively, you can email the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk who will pass on the message to your Specialist Mentor. 

Yes, please contact your Specialist Mentor if you need to change the format of your session from in-person to on MS Teams. If you need any help in contacting them, please email nmh@derby.ac.uk. 

You can continue to receive support whilst you are on placement if you have more than 10 weeks on campus in the academic year. 

We do have Specialist Mentors who can offer evening and weekend support. Please discuss your availability with your Specialist Mentor to see if they can facilitate this. If not, please email the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk.

If you run out of your DSA or University funded hours, you can discuss your ongoing support needs with your Disability Advisor. Your Disability Advisor can process a request for additional funded hours. 

Please note this process can take some time, so please check your used hours with your Specialist Mentor regularly to put in the request as soon as possible. 

We recommend you try a few sessions with your Specialist Mentor to give you time to build the relationship.

We recognise everyone's personality is different and you may decide the relationship is not working for you. If you would like to make a change to your Specialist Mentor, please contact the Student Support team on nmh@derby.ac.uk or visit the team via the Student Hub. Please be open and honest about why support is not working to allow us to re-allocate you with a new Specialist Mentor effectively.