We enjoy positive working relationships with needs assessors and disability advisors.
Those who regularly allocate students to Beacon say that they do so because of the positive feedback they receive from students about our service.
We believe that one of the reasons for the high quality of our support is our senior staff’s strong background in Band 4 provision.
This allows us to have a good understanding of the type of service that students want and need.
We believe that two factors make us distinct from other external providers. First is our ability to deliver service provision by Welsh speaking support staff; second is our expertise in ADHD. We have a strong interest in ADHD given the number of our students who demonstrate its characteristics – even if they haven’t a diagnosis. We have developed a support programme for our students that specifically addresses the key limitations of ADHD characteristics, such as difficulties with concentration, impulsive behaviour and motivation. Evidence shows a higher level of engagement with support by students who follow this programme. If you would like to receive a visit from us to know more about our ADHD support programme, please contact us directly.
The high quality of our support is also due to Beacon’s robust in-house CPD programme. We encourage our staff to continually update their skills and knowledge and we hold whole team training events to facilitate this along with the dissemination of best practice. Our mentors and tutors are encouraged to engage in peer support and also have open access to a senior mentor.
We are keen advocates of the use of assistive technology in our support sessions and provide regular AT training to all staff. One of our mentors was delighted to be introduced to mind mapping technology in a recent session and stated that she would put it to immediate use in revision sessions. We believe that training our support staff in AT is effective in encouraging its take-up among students. Please read the blog post by our AT Manager whose thesis examined the use of AT in support sessions. The majority of our team have also attended a two-day Brain in Hand training course so they can utilise this in their sessions with those students who have been recommended it as a tool.
From our conversations with different colleagues, we have highlighted some of your regular concerns below, along with our responses.
Many suppliers only provide Skype in certain geographical locations. Can you provide face to face support in areas that you advertise availability?
Some providers state they have availability when this is not the case. Do you actually have support staff immediately available?
When we began our support provision we committed to controlled growth so that we could maintain quality and ensure that we always have in-person availability. We never advertise in locations where we do not have available staff.
Can you provide support at-home in-person where the location is remote?
We pass to our staff our at-home in-person additional premium in its entirety, which results in willingness to travel. This means that it is unusual for us not to be able to deliver support, even in remote locations.
Do you provide support to Open University students?
A We have a robust lone worker protocol which enables us to provide support to OU students. We recognise that supporting OU students brings distinct challenges and we are currently developing links with the Open University and other stakeholders to ensure we are continually improving our service provision. If you are interested in finding out more about our research into OU DSA provision, please contact us directly.
