Study Skills Tutor
My Role
Specialist Mentor – Mental Health Difficulties (MH)
Specialist one-to-one Study Skills and Strategy Support – Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)
Professional Registration
I am registered with Patoss as an Affiliate Professional Practitioner Psychologist: member number AP9404
My Profile
Thank you for considering how my services can help you unravel your academic questions, challenges, and needs.
As a person with dyslexia, as well as an experienced study skills tutor, I have a vast amount of knowledge when it comes to developing education-friendly tools and techniques – both personally and professionally.
In addition, I have work in education and mental health services for 10 years as a counsellor, psychologist, mentor, coach. This has led to an established ability in supporting people with a variety of mental health conditions within an educational capacity.
Insurance
I am fully insured by Hiscox Insurance Company Limited.
Services Offered
I provide individualised interventions that empower students to manage their mental health in relation to their academic progression.
I work with further, higher, and adult education students who are experiencing a variety of mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, autism, and bipolar.
I also mentor those who are diagnosed with SpLD’s such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADD, ADHA, and dyscalculia.
I offer tailored SpLD support through the sharing of ‘mental health/SpLD-friendly’ tools and techniques that assist the student in managing their disability throughout their studies.
Counselling testimonies
"Andi has supported me for over 1 year now. He really helps me to manage my anxiety through our wellbeing plan and I have always found him to be kind, reliable, and empathetic."
"When I started counselling I was really hesitant but Andi helped me feel comfortable by providing me with as safe space to talk - I would definitely recommend."
"The cbt-based tackling stress and anxiety worksheets we go through in sessions are so useful for me as they help me figure out how I can manage my anxiety and stress better through breathing techniques, behaviour change and healthier thinking."
"Being bullied for being gay for 13 years meant I often experienced social anxiety, Andi helped me explore my experiences and better manage how I was feeling – it’s great having a counsellor from the LGBT community who understands some of your experiences."
Study Skills and Mental Health Support testimonies
"Andi has been such a great support for me as he has helped me get my head around referencing and also provided me with lots of study skills tip and tools to help me feel less stressed when completing my university work."
"I found my mentoring sessions with Andi very good as he always gave me time and space to explore how my mental health was being impacted by the challenges I was facing with my academic work. We then put together a plan as to how we would start reaching out to disability support at the university and also set up counselling which was so helpful. He is a very good tutor; I would highly recommend him. Overall through the course of 1 year, my grade went from a low 2:2 to a high 2:1."
"As someone with dyslexia I really struggled with writing essays but Andi helped me to develop researching and essay writing skills that have made this much easier and I even got a 1.1st in my dissertation!"
"I found it very hard to focus on my university work but my weekly session with Andi helped me gain focus and momentum. We developed a colour-coded calendar and we explored my feedback from previous work and figures out how to make sure I was not making the same mistakes twice. My grade increased as did my confidence."
"I have always loved studying but found it very stressful at times especially with my dyslexia but Andi was great in helping me see that I was able and also in providing tools to help manage my anxiety such as deep breathing techniques and organisational tools, I graduated with 76% overall."
Articles
Look how far we have come….but there is still work to do!
Stigma around mental health challenges is centuries old, crossing every nationality, culture and time period (Tartakovsky, 2018). As a consequence, stigma is still deep-seated in society’s ways of thinking. In addition, research links powerful negative media images with public prejudice, as reinforced by the sensationalist approach of the media which is fuelled by the motivation to be prejudiced, ignorant and fearful of mental illness (Harteneck, 2015).
Tips for teachers – talking about mental health in the classroom
Andi Smart is a Mental Health Practitioner and Teacher who works for a number of care and education establishments in mental health support and teaching roles; as well as developing health and social care qualifications for a number of awarding organisations.
We asked him for his top 10 tips for teachers on talking about mental health in the classroom.