Formal and Informal Mentoring Relationships - Assignment Example

Mentorship Faculty Day session 2: Mentoring is a process discussed over 3 decades for its importance, challenges, developments and complexities of relationships. The formal and informal mentoring relationships have been difficult to describe because language used in the literature was not standardized (Young and Writ, 2001). Mentoring occurs in different places for different reasons between two individuals. It plays a crucial role in developing professionals in professional environment of Nursing, Army, engineering and various fields of management studies. Studies have shown that employees who have supportive working relationships benefit by accelerated leadership development, higher earnings, and increased job satisfaction (Sosik and Lee, 2002 Mentoring is a professional relationship with a focus on personal and professional development. It may occur through various communication venues including, but not limited to face-to-face interactions, phone, or email. The duration and intensity of the relationship may vary depending on the dynamic of the match and the needs of the individuals involved. (American Physiological Society, 2008). There are range of factors from a clinical environment which may impact upon the learning of individuals and groups in that environment. These factors can be related to the protégé, mentor or the other factors of the environment (Chan, 2004). The factors related to protégé are educational background, knowledge and skills, level of commitment to learn and develop his or her skills and knowledge, dedication, communication with mentor and others. In the same way, mentor needs to have adequate knowledge, skills and experience to share with the protégé and help them in their development (Hand, 2006). Mentors are senior persons with experiences and usually have busy schedules. The time management with the students are the most challenging aspects of mentoring process (Papp et al, 2003). In many cases, mentoring is considered as important process to help new professionals to develop their skills and knowledge. The perception and attitude of mentor and protégé influences their developmental relationships. For me as a mentor, the most challenging factors of the clinical learning environment for mentoring process as identified are lack of time with mentor, communication gaps between mentor and protégé and very underdeveloped skills of protégés. Usually in the oncology department, the professionals are loaded with work and new challenges with each patient. Patients are the priority and this makes it very challenging for the mentor to get time after having five patients to handle everyday. This results in a challenging situation where I do not have time left for my protégés. These results in lack of time to communicate share or understand the protégé’s perspectives, challenges and areas needed attention. Due to this problem there is a big breakdown in the communication between student and mentor which results in the students making many mistakes. Their skills are undeveloped and require attention. The protégés require support to develop their skills and learn how to apply theory and practice together. All these results put me in a challenging situation to handle my responsibilities as a mentor. Even though I could identify the areas where my protégés require help and attention I am not able to do so because of the lack of time and communication gap. This hinders the one to one and supporting relationship with protégé. The protégés need direction and encouragement to develop of their fullest potential (National Mentoring Partnership as cited by Buckley and Zimmermann, 2003). According to NMC standards (2008) it is mentors responsibility to “provide ongoing and constructive support to facilitate transition from one learning environment to another.” This is one of the basic criteria for establishing an effective working relationship. On my part, I think I need to be more focused and planned to deal with the challenges of the mentoring process. This indicates the need of time management and utilization of new modes of communications. In order to maintain regular and consistent contact with the mentees, I might contact them with new media of communications like internet, telephonic conversations and others. I can ask them to send me their experiences, problems and challenges as electronic mail apart from the conversations, before any meeting. This can reduce our time and energy to understand the background of the problem and I will also have time to find out the appropriate solution. My mentees are fast learners and have good knowledge of theory. But in the clinical environment, theoretical knowledge alone is not sufficient. They must know how to use theory in the practical environment. This requires my proactive efforts. I must be very attentive to the cases I had been involved. I can identify theoretical perspective and implementation aspects of the real time cases and share that with them within the ethical parameters of the nursing practice. NMC Standards (2008) specifies mentor’s standard as an individual that can induce and create an environment for learning to its protégés. This requires supporting students to identifying their learning needs and experiences appropriate for their learning, using range of learning experiences, involving patients, clients, careers and the professional team, to meet defined learning needs. This can be done with the identification of learning areas of each protégé and helping them to develop professionally and personally. Day session 3: According to NMC Standards (2008) mentor’s responsibility includes enabling students to relate theory to practice whilst developing critically reflective skills, fostering professional growth and personal development by use of effective communication and facilitation skills and facilitating and develop the ethos of inter-professional learning and working.” Mentoring relationship is a reciprocal relationship between mentor and protégé. In order to establish effective working relationships with the learner should trust his mentor. Mentor and protégé should be able to share their experiences and viewpoints and mentor should be able to guide the protégé in his best possible way. This is possible with the effective communication between the mentor and protégé (American Psychological Society, 2008). There are ranges of communication skills available for the facilitation of learning like informative, challenging, catalytically and supportive (Chan, 2004). These communication skills are used on the basis of the learning needs by the mentor. Mentor can identify specific needs of the each of his mentee. The motivational factors for mentees may differ from each other (Hand, 2006). Young (2000) focuses on the commitment, dedication and communication requirement for the facilitation of mentoring. “Time involves commitment and dedication demonstrated by the mentors accessibility which allows the relationship to become a seamless part of the learning culture. The time in the relationship is spent on developing the protégé, listening, and helping the protégé to solve problems. Mentoring can be a lifelong process that is cyclical whereas the protégé eventually becomes a mentor and develop other protégés (Young, 2000). The involvement, commitment and regular communication helps in developing the relationship. National Mentoring Partnership (as cited by Buckley and Zimmermann, 2003) lists elements of responsible mentoring process. The first element is the structure of the mentoring partnership or relationship. The structure should be such that it focuses on the needs of the mentored participants. Therefore, my prime focus is to identify the learning needs of the protégé. One of the recently identified cases is of one of the four weeks old student. This student has good knowledge of theory and shows interest in learning. However in one particular area, I felt she could do better. This is her confidence in delegation skills. Now my first challenge was to help her recognising the need and second was helping her to learn the same in the remaining of eight weeks of her placement. I thought and planned to go step by step. In order to increase the effectiveness of the mentoring process I must have a good relationship with her in terms of mutual trust, sharing and in order to increase her confidence in my mentoring job. I needed to help her in identification of her own strengths and weaknesses rather than simply guiding her. First I discussed about various aspects around delegation skills with her and asked her to revisit the theoretical aspects of the same. I asked her to list down the areas where she thinks she needs to improve and hone her skills. One of the main aspects she had listed was delegation skills. In this way her participation and active learning was ensured. In the next step I started sharing small cases, discussion on the delegation and her understanding to the cases. This would help her to understand different cases and practical situations. My role in her learning process would be of facilitator. To facilitate learning of the protégé, I would use open communication channels. My priority would be to develop a mutual trust and increase her level of confidence. The challenges I might face can be from the difference of the social and cultural background of protégé and me. There were certain aspects of life portrayed in different manner in his society (Papp et al, 2003). The philosophy of life and illness are different. The cases I have handled have been different from each other in various ways. Some of the cases had been real challenge. My priority was to sort out the cases particular to delegation skills. The things relevant to the delegation aspects would be discussed. I would expect her person to participate actively in the mentoring process. I am involved in the mentoring process and I expect the same level of involvement from my protégé. Mentoring process allowed me to share my experiences and help her to develop one of important skills of the profession. . Reference: American Physiological Society, (2008) retrieved on 12 May 2009 from http://mentoring.apa.org/ Bahn D (2001) Social learning theory: its application in the context of nursing education, Nurse Education Today 21 (2) 110-117. Buckley, M A and Zimmermann, S H (2003) Mentoring Children and Adolescents: A Guide to the Issues, Prager: Westport, CT Chan D (2004)The relationship between student learning outcomes from their clinical placement and their perceptions of the social climate of the clinical learning environment, Contemporary Nurse 17(1-2) 149-158. Dunn S, Hansford B (1997) Undergraduate nursing students perceptions of their clinical learning environment. Journal of Advanced Nursing 25 (6) 1299-1306. Hand H ( 2006) Promoting effective teaching and learning in the clinical setting. Nursing Standard 20 (39) 55-63 Nicklin P J, Kenworthy N (2000) Teaching and Assessing in Nursing Practice: an experiential approach (3rd edition). Edinburgh, Balliere Tindall Papp I, Markkanen M, von Bonsdorff M (2003) Clinical environment as a learning environment: student nurses’ perceptions concerning clinical learning experiences. Nurse Education Today 23 (4) 262-268. Price B (2004) Mentoring the key to clinical learning. Mentoring learners in practice No 1, Nursing Standard 18(52) 1-2 Price B (2005) Challenging learners to think critically. Nursing Standard 19 (44) Mentoring Learners in Practice Number Makinson G (2002) The role of mentoring in career development. Nursing and Residential Care. 4 (8) p392-394 August 2002 MC (2008) Standards to support learning and assessment in practice: NMC standards for mentors, practice teachers and teachers, 2nd Edition July 2008. London NMC Sosik, J. J., & Lee, D. L. (2002). Mentoring in organizations: A social judgment perspective for developing tomorrow’s leaders. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 8(4), 17-32. Stamps, L. (2005). Reach for the Stars: Mentors Make Futures Bright. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 72(1), 39-44. Retrieved February 14, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database. Young and Writ (2001) The Components for Success, Journal of Instructional Psychology, 28 (3), 202 Young, C. & Adams, H.G. (2000). Mentoring: A Strategic Advantage Developing Protege Plan for Promotion and Tenure (in press). Read More