Tutors with Disabilities and Mental Health Concerns; Underrepresented but Very Much Present

Jessica Roder

Writing center literature has put forth a mélange of resources to prepare tutors for working with writers who may have disabilities or mental health concerns/disorders. However, in the 2015 Praxis issue, “Dis/Ability in the Writing Center” which focused on disability-studies, Rebecca Day Babcock drew attention to the lack of literature available for tutors to aid them in navigating how to work with their own potential disabilities, and even less was to be found on tutors with mental health concerns/disorders. Although more articles and studies surrounding these tutors are beginning to surface in the years since the 2015 Praxis issue, there remains a clear underrepresentation of tutors in the discourse and research pertaining to disabilities and mental health concerns/disorders. It’s time to change that.

Many peer tutors are employed within writing centers, and peer tutors often fall within the age range, 18 years to 25 years, which the National Institute of Mental Health reports is most at risk for a mental health concern/disorder (Mental Illness, 2019). 30 out of 49 writing center tutors reported having a diagnosed disability or mental health concern/disorder in response to a question posed on my IRB-approved undergraduate research project conducted in the fall semester of 2019. The most commonly reported mental health concerns/disorders among my survey respondents were anxiety (48.98% of 49 respondents) and depression (36.73% of 49 respondents). These figures implicate the likelihood that many writing center tutors are working with a mental health concern/disorder, regardless of whether they’ve chosen to disclose it with others in their writing center. The high number of respondents who disclosed their mental health concerns/disorders on my survey highlights the necessity for both further research on writing center tutors who have mental health concerns/disorders, as well as available resources for tutors to enable them to have successful sessions with as many writers as possible. A question that remains is how to encourage writing center tutors who may be in need of accommodations but who have not disclosed their mental health concern/disorder or invisible disability.

M.M. Elston, a writing center director, touched on her own hesitation to disclose her mental health disorder in her 2015 Praxis article, noting that “[r]egardless of a faculty member’s credentials, scholarship, and achievements, the act of disclosure can prompt some audiences to leap to unfounded assumptions about job performance” (17). This hesitation in a higher member of faculty is likely to be echoed and intensified among other staff members, including peer tutors. Out of 39 total respondents, 51% who had the choice to disclose their disability or mental health concern/disorder had chosen not to disclose with anybody within their writing center. The reasons behind their decisions not to disclose are unclear at this time, but of those who did choose to disclose, the most common disclosure was with a fellow tutor (35.9%), and the least common was with a writer (20.5%). Although disclosure may not be necessary for a tutor with a disability or mental health concern/disorder to have a positive experience with their writer, there is reason to believe greater connections between the two are possible through the shared experience.

Although disabilities and mental health concerns/disorders can have less desirable impacts on sessions, including missing a tutoring shift or experiencing an inability to focus during a session, there are many positive impacts that tutors reported in my survey. Out of 37 respondents, 37.84% reported sharing a positive experience with a writer during a session and 27% were able to establish better rapport with a tutee. Additionally, 27% of these respondents were able to educate their tutee about disability/counseling resources available through their school during or after the session. This is incredibly important when considering the role that the writing center can play within its educational institution as a safe and inclusive space and asserts the necessity for tutors to be knowledgeable about the services available to students (and themselves) through their institution. Sarah Mucek (2012) suggested that peer tutors may have the ability to create an inclusive environment during sessions with writers because a professor is viewed as having much more authority than their students. This lack of a power dynamic within sessions can lead to the challenging of perceptions of disability with personal knowledge and autobiographical experience. When appropriate, tutors and writers can help each other to understand how to navigate their own disabilities or mental health concerns/disorders, and the shared connection can help both to feel more at ease in their institution.

My survey delved into other areas of tutoring with disabilities or mental health concerns/disorders, such as tutor training, undiagnosed disabilities or mental health concerns/disorders, and general demographics of the tutors who participated. One last chunk of information worth mentioning in this context are the 85.71% of tutors whose training did not address tutors with disabilities, the 77.55% of tutors whose training did not address tutors with mental health concerns/disorders, and the 20% whose tutor training did not address working with students who have disabilities or mental health concerns/disorders. These numbers indicate the underrepresentation of tutors who may be working with a disability or mental health concern/disorder and highlights a need for a shift in tutor training to include these underrepresented tutors and writers with discourse and research. Further research about these individuals is not meant to act as a witch-hunt or to alienate them, but rather, to understand how to enable the best sessions possible between them and their writers, and how to help them feel safe and included in their workspace.

In this study, the prevalence of tutors with mental health concerns/disorders presents evidence that although these tutors are underrepresented within writing center literature and research, we are more likely than we might think to work with fellow tutors who have mental health concerns/disorders or disabilities. The writing center can be a place of comfort and inclusivity for many, but we need to remember to consistently open conversations and adapt our mindsets about disabilities and mental health concerns/disorders in order to create lasting change that will benefit those who are most impacted by the attitudes, training, and policies currently in place.

References

Babcock, R. (2015). Disabilities in the writing center. In Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. Retrieved from http://www.praxisuwc.com/babcock-131

Elston, M. M. (2015). Psychological disability and the director’s chair: interrogating the relationship between positionality and pedagogy. In Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. Retrieved from http://www.praxisuwc.com/elston-131

Mental Illness. (2019, February). In National Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtml

Mucek, S. (2012). Identity and the disabled tutor: the possibilities of re-constructing selfhood in peer writing conferences. In R. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds.), Writing Centers and Disability (pp. 105-122). N.p.: Fountainhead Press.

About the Author

At the time of writing this, Jessica Roder was an undergraduate enrolled in the Liberal Arts Transfer Program at Madison Area Technical College. Her honor’s project on disability and mental health concerns/disorders within writing center tutors was presented at the International Writing Centers Association annual conference in the fall of 2019. She aims to pursue her passion by teaching in the field of psychology after obtaining further education. Outside of her schooling, Jessica works full-time as an assistant manager in a tea shop and has a dog and a cat.

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