Case study: Petroc Supporting learners with personality ... - MHFE

Supporting learners with personality disorders
Case study: Petroc
Contact: Doug Morrish
d.morrish@petroc.ac.uk
Petroc was very pleased to be involved in this pilot on behalf of LSIS which looks at supporting
our learners with personality disorders. We feel it is of paramount importance to support
learners with mental health problems, including personality disorders effectively in their mental
well-being as well as in their academic performance, as without support, such learners are
much more likely to drop out and/or not achieve to their full potential. Their problems present
barriers to achievement and progression, which, with early identification and the right package
of support, can be successfully broken down.
We are a very large further education college with sites in Barnstaple, Exeter, Tiverton and
Honiton. We have a really strong team of support workers who provide highly effective support
to learners who are referred for a variety of reasons, including mental health concerns. Many
teaching staff, and indeed, support workers and the College counsellor, however, are not
equipped to identify a personality disorder, which means problems are often not identified and
appropriate support is not provided.
Approximately 1 in 25 people in the UK has a personality disorder, which means in a College
which enrols 20,000 learners each year, approximately 800 learners will have a personality
disorder. Whilst we are aware of a number of learners having personality disorders, we are
certain we are unaware of many others as the signs are simply not picked up.
We want to participate in this project to enable us to improve the ability of staff across the
College to identify personality disorders at an early stage to ensure support can be provided
and all learners achieve to their full potential. We also want to tackle prejudice against people
with personality disorders by raising awareness and ensuring people know the facts.
That said, we decided to engage with some of our learners who have identified themselves as
having a personality disorder. It became apparent that any mental health issues can be a huge
barrier to learning and as a direct result of the consultation we have identified two full- time staff
that are dedicated to supporting learners with mental health/ personality disorder issues.
We decided that we required specialist training that would help to equip our staff with some
knowledge in identifying personality disorder at the earliest stage possible. This ideally would
be at interview, however, as some of our learners identified, they can do a “very good job at
covering up” in the early stages of engagement as some institutions may see additional work or
failing students effecting statistics. Therefore we have trained our senior tutors, and handpicked
support staff that can recognise and work with identified students, and refer to our
support teams if required.
April 2011 Page 1 of 2

This support work will be offered at different levels:
Low level support where we offer a “Drop-In” to learners on a need basis;
Mentor support, regular mutually convenient support meetings;
Counselling sessions (including initial assessment).
We have also identified some excellent resources to support both learners and staff in working
with and living with personality disorder. This we intend to make centrally available for all to
access.
These include:
Information leaflets
Reading List
Information DVD
Posters
Petroc support services have always prioritised and recognised the need to work in
partnership with external agencies, these include the Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Service, GPs, Probation, Housing, Drug & Alcohol Services and so on.
We will be working hard to explore a robust and recognised route of referral to such agencies,
this should see continuity for learners in achieving specialist support.
As a result of these conversations, we have identified that some of the specialist agencies will
consider bringing their service to the college, therefore easing engagement and access for our
learners.
We intend to use a proportion of the grant to buy in additional support hours as identified and
required, which will help indicate what level of support is required next year. Also our intention
is to use the findings to help secure future funding (with the approval of LSIS).
The consultation process with colleagues and students over the last month has highlighted
issues around safeguarding and confidentiality. Being the Safeguarding Officer for the college, I
am aware of these issues especially for the counselling team and they require additional
support and regular supervision, this is a consideration when looking at funding.
April 2011 Page 2 of 2