From stressed to organised

Avani feels empowered to pursue her academic ambitions and work towards her long-term career goals with support from Brain in Hand. She shares how she balances a busy schedule, juggling two courses while building her independence. Avani finds reassurance in being able to refer back to coping strategies and her newly acquired DBT skills during moments of crisis.

Pursuing an online degree with DSA support

Avani is a 30-year-old student who received Brain in Hand from DSA at the beginning of 2024. She recently made the switch from an in-person degree to an online course with Open University. With a busy schedule to juggle and health problems, she hopes this change will offer her greater flexibility.

“I originally started last year in a full time in-person university, close to home. But because I haven't been very well for the last year it meant that I've had to drop out. I will now be completing my degree online with the open university as a disabled student.”

Achieving my academic goals with daily planning

Avani shares how daily planning with Brain in Hand has been helpful in mapping out her goals for the year ahead. She is studying for her degree alongside a specialised course with the goal of transitioning onto a Master’s in Animal Behaviour and Welfare. BiH helps her to structure her studies, ensuring she has time for each course, and can work towards her ultimate goal of becoming a self-employed clinical animal behaviourist.

“This year, I'm doing my degree but I'm also doing a second Level 3 course at the same time because the two degrees together will help me get into my masters. They'll enable me to be able to work immediately whilst I'm doing my masters. The career that I've chosen will be self-employed as I'm not well suited to a stereotypical work environment. I've had so many bad experiences being at work, so using BiH, I have it planned out. On the weekdays, I'll be doing my degree and then on weekends I'll be doing my other courses.”

The planner section of BiH has empowered Avani to overcome stress and prioritise tasks effectively. She finds it helpful for managing her time across all areas of life, including her studies.

“It's helped me to be able to plan out and prioritise things. Rather than sit there and get stressed out every single day because I've got this list that I want to achieve, and I hadn't thought about if that's actually going to fit into that time frame.”

Pairing Brain in Hand with DBT support

Avani is six weeks into a 12-month dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) programme of support provided by the NHS. Once a week, she spends 3 hours on this programme, and is learning skills to support her in moments of crisis. Avani has transferred these new skills into Brain in Hand as coping strategies to refer back to when she needs them most.

By pairing Brain in Hand with her DBT knowledge, Avani feels that she can build her independence. This provides a practical way for her to make use of those skills, which she feels will be helpful not just now, but throughout her entire life.

“I’m going to find it really, really helpful throughout my entire life as soon as it's set up properly with all the DBT skills, it's halfway there. I know it's going to make me more independent. I do have a problem with not being particularly independent and needing constant reassurance and always going, am I OK to do this? Or do you think it's a good idea for me to do this? Rather than relying on my partner when having big emotions, I'll be able to just look at it and go, OK, so today I'm going to do this.”

Building independence and managing big emotions

Avani feels excited to develop a real sense of independence and manage big emotions by herself. She can use Brain in Hand as a tool to bring out her strengths and valuable knowledge, helping her to problem solve in a crisis.

“DBT has skills coaching that comes along with it so you can text your therapist outside of therapy to get support. But obviously if I've got it all written down, I'm not going to need to do that so much. I'm kind of excited to see what it'd be like to have a crisis and be able to self-serve that. I've never been able to do that before.”

She shares how this newfound independence is beneficial for her relationship. Now, she feels that they can have more of a relationship, rather than feeling more reliant on him as a carer. Avani also notes how mood tracking using the traffic light tool has been useful for documenting her emotions, especially the positive ones.

“It's going to be great for mine and my partner's relationship as well because when I'm less reliant on him, it'll be more of a relationship rather than a carer relationship. I have sensory difficulties, but I also have unstable emotions and you can imagine how many large emotions I'll have in a 24 hour period. Brain in Hand has been really useful to track my mood just being able to look back and there'll be a bit of positiveness by seeing that green.”

Pursuing my dream career

When asked how life at university and socialising might have been different without Brain in hand, Avani reflected that she may not have pursued her ambitions. She feels that she wouldn’t have considered juggling two courses without the support for time management, and ultimately not have considered her ambition to become a self-employed clinical animal behaviourist.  

“In terms of university, I probably would have dropped out a lot sooner. I probably wouldn't have decided to do the courses concurrently either because I was really struggling to manage my time efficiently with the lengthy list of things. I was putting it into ChatGPT and even ChatGPT was not able to fit it all into a timetable. I’ve put so much time and effort into it as well, so it's been really helpful to manage my time and be able to track my mood. I didn't realise how bad my mood was until I started tracking my mood and when I was clicking green every now and then it's like cool, so I still have good periods.”

It’s clear that Avani highly values Brain in Hand, sharing how it is one of the key reasons why she continued her studies. She is only able to keep BiH through DSA if she is in university.

“It has helped to keep me from dropping out of university because it's one of the things I really want to keep and I can only keep it if I'm in university.” 

Positive and practical coaching support 

Avani gives us insight into her experience of coaching with BiH. She shares how their approach has been more personable and positive compared to previous experiences. Her coaches really understand what she needs and offer real, practical advice that has been helpful to Avani.

“They kind of just get things and they're friendly and it's helped the last few months whilst I've been fighting with my university for reasonable adjustments. To have that knowledge that there is still a nice person out there. I have a history of literally being told I'm really not professionally qualified to deal with you and I haven't been told that once by either of my coaches. They've been able to give me really useful tips and advice and ways of doing things that have actually been helpful for me. They've got to know what I'm after, whereas a lot of the time I've had support from other places they'll just throw out normal generic ideas that just don't work with me. That's why I don't do CBT because I've done it eight times, it doesn't work.”

If Avani no longer had access to Brain in Hand, she would want to build her own version of the app, and end up not focusing on her studies.

“I would end up not studying for uni or my other course because I would be devoting my attention to trying to make my own version of the app that already exists.”

Cost savings for the economy and NHS 

Brain in Hand support can result in key economic cost savings as a result of helping Avani to complete her studies and pursue a self-employed career. Here are three key areas where we can see significant savings:

1. Tuition fees: By continuing her studies, Avani ensures that Open University is not losing out on fees. This amounts to a total of £21,816 for a 3-year full time honours degree, if Avani stays in university.
2. Self-employment: Avani shares how traditional workplaces are difficult for her. If she is supported to continue her studies and become self-employed, she would not need state support, which could save the exchequer more than £12,000 alone (Mallender et al., 2017).
3. DBT skills: BiH can support Avani to remember her DBT knowledge, which means she won’t require DBT refresher sessions, saving the NHS at least £3,000 every few years. 

References for cost of DBT

Estimated cost of DBT intervention through UK national health service was an average £3,159 over 10 years ago (Preibe et al, 2012). Private costs average at around  £120 for a 121 session (2 sessions for 21 weeks would be £6,240) or £100 per group session (weekly for 20-40 weeks so £2,000-£4,000). DBT usually takes a minimum of 6 months and it is also suggested that people may need to retake them