National Mentoring Month runs from January 1st– January 31st and is a dedicated annual campaign raising awareness about the power of mentoring. It’s a time to spotlight the impacts of mentoring, elevate awareness, dive into best practices and share stories from mentors and mentees.
Clinical Director for Psychology Projects and South/South West Regional Psychologist, Karen Howell and Forensic Psychologist, Clare Peatson worked within a mentor/mentee partnership when Clare was doing her Stage 2 training in Forensic Psychology.
Find out what Karen and Clare have to say about their mentorship, how they worked together, what they learnt from each other and what their advice to someone entering a mentorship would be.
How did you find your mentorship journey as a mentor/mentee?
Karen (Mentor):
It very much was a journey, and it transitioned from start to finish. I think like any mentorship journey the roles developed for both of us over time. I felt like I was quite strongly guiding and teaching Clare quite early on in all aspects of her role, so everything from how you sit in a room with the service user or a group of service users to maximise rapport and safety, how to manage your interpersonal behaviour to direct teaching about clinical issues.
I was doing a lot of teaching and whereas, as things progressed, it became a lot more collaborative and ultimately, I could just sit back and say, well, what do you think, Clare, how are you going deal with this?
We did a bit of sense checking when she got to the stage where she was exceptionally competent in all the skills that are required. Towards the mid and definitely the latter stages it felt more like it was a collaborative partnership and from my point of view, it felt very open and transparent and very honest.
It felt like a very safe environment because it was such a long term mentoring relationship.
I learnt so much from Clare as a human being, as a practitioner and as a Psychologist. Mentoring really makes you reflect a lot on your values and what really drives you as a professional.
It was thoroughly an educational experience for me and it’s a delight to help grow people.
Clare (Mentee):
I would just echo completely everything Karen has said. It really did feel like a hugely collaborative, hugely safe, hugely empowering partnership. I felt really empowered throughout the journey and I felt trusted and supported to really grow, develop and push myself into areas outside of my comfort zone. I think working collaboratively makes the real difference and I just learned so much from all the experience, wisdom and amazing skills that Karen was able to share with me.
I think because it was a very long term process, it goes almost beyond a supervisor/supervisee dynamic to something a little bit more where you’re really learning about yourself as an individual and how you are growing together.
Clare, will mentoring be something that you will be doing now?
Clare (Mentee):
Yes, I already supervise Assistant Psychologists. And I hope over the next few years to be able to supervise a trainee too. Its really exciting to have the opportunity to be able to provide the same learning experience that Karen offered to me.
Karen (Mentor):
I would say that one of the core skills that Clare has developed, because she’s a Psychologist is to mentor, develop, consult with other people and grow them. One of the main skills you develop is being able to provide your own supervisory skills. It’s a continuous evolution for a mentee.
What would you advise anyone thinking of entering a mentorship?
Karen (Mentor):
My advice is to be very authentic. Be very open and transparent regardless of whether you’re the mentee or the mentor, and create a psychologically safe space, because without that, without that being absolutely genuine, you do not get the best out of the relationship for either of the mentor or mentee.
As the mentor the key thing is that you are learning as much as the mentee, it is very much a two-way relationship in terms of personal and professional growth.
Clare (Mentee):
I would agree. I think for both parties, core listening skills are really important. I think sometimes both parties could come in with their own agendas, own ideas. But I think being really open to the ideas and advice and being able to listen and really understand the processes that you both go through is really important.
And for both parties being aware that the relationship’s is going to change and be quite dynamic, there’s going to be times when it’s a little bit more collaborative or there’s going to be times when the dynamics shift a little bit. It is important to be open to seeing that process evolve and it being quite fluid. And regardless of where you are at on your journey its always ok to ask for help.
Karen (Mentor):
I think one of the other points that really makes mentoring work very well is to develop somebody as a professional, you’ve got a number of different types of skills to develop.
You’ve got technical skills about the actual job, so the how to and then you’ve got the system skills and the relationship or person skills. It’s really important that a lot of attention is focused just as much on the relational aspect of how people work as much as the technical skills.
For both parties be prepared to let mistakes happen and just learn from them.
As a mentor one of the things that I found really hard – and Clare has given me the confidence with this – is saying “well, actually I’m not going to step in and do this for you, I’m going to let you do that.” As a mentor your role is to focus on advice-giving, but ultimately the mentee has to find their own path – you give them the directions, and the principles and values to work within, then you need to step back and let them find their own way of dealing with things – and we can debrief afterwards and learn what went well.
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