Providing Supervision and Mentoring Support to Others Within The Workplace Through Teaching, Learning and Assessment

The purpose of this essay is to critically reflect on providing supervision and mentoring support to others within the work place through teaching, learning and assessment. Evidence will be drawn from knowledge and understanding of theories and principles in practice of supervising and mentoring people within the work place, and how it fits into the organisational values and objectives (integrity, partnership, quality and changing). For this assignment Driscoll’s (2007), reflective model will be used. I will analyse and reflect on how I have used my supervising and mentoring skills to support a new member of staff in my work place, and I will also reflect and evaluate my mentoring experience and that of my learner for any area of improvement. Efforts will be made to maintain confidentiality through out the essay. All names will be pseudonym both of individuals and institutions that will be used.

Mentoring according to the Department of Health (2018), “is a relationship between an experienced and a less experienced person in which the mentor guidance, advice, support and feedback to the mentee”. Mentoring can be done by anyone, at any time and in almost any place. It is therefore a relationship that informs and enhance learning and development between a mentor and mentee. The process can be focused, planned relationship where the mentor assists the mentee achieve greater self-awareness, identify and plan alternatives and initiate and evaluate actions. Mentoring relationships have a clear start, evaluation and ending.

Mentoring is a partnership which allows both the mentor and the mentee to equally contribute to the learning process as equals working together, and the relationship should be based on mutual respect, cooperation and acceptance. According to Neary (2000a), it is important for a mentor to have some necessary skills and experience for mentoring, which include coaching, counselling, facilitating, setting standards, assessing and giving feedback. As a mentor I prepared myself before meeting the new member of staff. I was given full details of the new member of staff which included previous experience they have had before in health care, mother of two and her age. With this information I had to discuss with my manager on making sure the new member of staff is working on the same days I was to be on shift. And know the type of learner my mentee is going to be and the teaching style to adopt for her as an adult learner. Aston and Hallam (2014), stated that mentors need to engage their leaners by making them feel part of the team, and by giving them responsibilities commensurate with the level they are. In doing so, mentors will help to create a sense of responsibilities in the learner. Mentee’s first responsibility in a new working environment is to become part of the team. This facilitates the mentee’s acceptance within the team and influence the mentee’s self-esteem.

I met my student for the first time and had to introduce myself to her as her mentor. Part of my job was to build up an effective working relationship with my mentee and orientate her to the ward. According to Brown (2002), for two individuals who are unusually initially unknown to each other, adopting the mentor – mentee relationship presupposes that they can communicate with each other, and develop a rapport and cultivate a working relationship at the least. But if mentee’s lack the clarity of what the mentee-mentor relationship or the method of supervision, then the mentee feels like they are “hanging around waiting to be noticed”. Roger (1983) stated that for such relationship to be built mentor – mentee should ensure that first certain key conditions prevail;

• Acceptance of the individuals for who they are, that is for their individual strengths and weaknesses, culture, beliefs and mutual respect.
• Genuineness – as a person, honesty.
• Empathic understanding – being able to see situations from the other person’s perspective.

I had to first explain to the new member of staff the number of years I have been working on the ward and how it was for me when I first started work on the ward. This was to calm her down and make her not feel like she is the first person to go through the stage of being a new staff on the ward. In the process I orientated her to the ward in line with the NMC code (2018), which states that “new employee should be thoroughly inducted into their area of work.” I also used the time to introduce her to other professionals within the team to make her feel welcomed and part of the team she will be working with. Nurses are meant to understand the role and responsibilities of other health and social care professionals and seek to work with them collaboratively for the benefit of all who need care. The general attitude of the multidisciplinary team towards learning and new members of staff will also have a great influence on the learning environment. A learning environment should be one that has friendly and knowledgeable staff with positive attitude and encouraging allocated time for teaching. Good communication is also important to make a mentee feel that they are part of the team and a culture in which staffs are open to new ideas and shear new learning from courses.

Colleagues, patients, equipment, new information and skills can have a positive or negative impact on the mentee’s ability to learn and therefore, mentors need to create a learning environment that shows their knowledge and enthusiasm, and contributes to mentee’s learning. The working environment should be safe and secure for my mentee to work in. The ward is very busy, and it can be both mentally and physically draining sometimes. As a mentor I have to know how to operate some of the equipment used within the ward to maintain safety for both the patient and I, so that I can confidently teach my mentee. Sometimes new staffs find it difficult to adapt to the ward. With continuous encouragement and practice my mentee was able to adapt to the ward. I also showed my mentee where to find some research literature used in the working environment in case of doubt on how to use some of the equipment. All these gave my mentee the opportunity to gain first-hand information of her working area, the things that will be expected of her by other members of the team and myself. Part of my role as a mentor was to promote a positive learning for my mentee during the period.

A mentor who can do a great deal to enhance the mentee’s motivation. This can be done through arousing curiosity in the mentee and help her set sight on achieving a targeted outcome, which in my mentee’s case was completing her care certificate. It is well known that people learn by doing, through practice, trial and error, and repetition where appropriate. As a mentor it was my responsibility to give my mentee the opportunity to practice whatever I was teaching her at every stage of her learning because she had informed me that she learn more by doing. I also tried to encourage my mentee to embrace a collaborative learning style. A collaborative learning style is a joint intellectual effort by a learner and teacher together. This is because a collaborative learning will encourage collaborative working which is an essential part of the Nursing and Midwifery Code. I took time to analyse my mentee’s care certificate work book to establish her learning needs and plan my teaching activities according to her learning needs. I implemented ‘Andragogy’ a method of learning which is defined by Knowles et al., (2011) as the way in which adults are educated. Andragogy is an approach to teaching and learning aimed at enabling individuals to become aware that they should be the originator of their own thinking. Since my mentee is an adult learner with past care experience I thought adopting this style was going to help her achieve her required outcome.

Rogers and Horrocks (2010), identified some characteristics of adult learners which include;

• Adults are usually self-motivated to learn.
• Adults may have relevant (or faulty) professional and life experience.
• Open discussion is more feasible in adult groups.
• Teaching can be adjusted based on ongoing evaluation of learning needs.

Maslow’s (1987), theory of hierarchy of human needs suggests that our highest level of needs, which is also lower priority, is our need for self-actualisation. According to Maslow, our physiological needs are highest priority, followed by safety needs, the need for belongingness and love, our self-esteem needs and finally the need for self-actualisation. This could be argued that the goal of every mentor is to assist their mentee to achieve self-actualisation, to help the learner to become the best that they can be with the available resources at their disposal. As for my mentee, her highest priority was to be competent in all the skills she had to learn to complete her care certificate at the end of the period. As a mentor, part of my role is to make sure my mentee gets the highest support and training toward achieving her competency in her care certificate. It was very important that I carry out my responsibilities appropriately.

Leibowitz and Schlossberg (1981) identified eight different functions of a mentor: Communicator, Counsellor, Coach, Advisor, Broker, Referral Agent, Advocate, Benchmarker. Using the care certificate handbook as a guide I was able to help my mentee to not just understand but also perform some of the competencies she had to achieve. The competencies are:

• Understanding your role
• Personal development
• Duty of care
• Equality and diversity
• Work in a person-centred way
• Communication
• Privacy and dignity
• Fluid and Nutrition
• Safe guiding adults
• Health and safety
• Infection prevention and control
• Handling information.

As an adviser, I was able to support and advice my mentee by recommending training opportunities available to my mentee to help her achieve some of her competencies. And helping to review my mentees plans by signing off each competency as we go along. As a coach I was able to help my mentee improve on the knowledge she already has and improve on her good communication skills which I noticed in her. As a communicator I was able to make my mentee understand the important of good communication in health and social care. I also made sure I listened actively and interestingly to my mentee whenever she had any concerns. I had to teach my mentee the SOLER technique in communication. Which according to Egan, communication is not just about receiving and sending information, but also involves the use of non-verbal methods. As a counsellor, I was able to help my mentee to plan on how to achieve her competency by evaluating other areas of learning that are available to her within the trust. I advised my mentee to try and work with other nurses within the ward because of the vast experience she can tap from. As a coach I had to teach my mentee some specific technical skills like using the Dinamap and bladder scanner. This involves working in a person-centred way and maintaining privacy and dignity of the patient. As a broker, help to expand my mentee’s network of professional contacts by introducing her to other members of the interdisciplinary Team. In my mentee’s case she needed to know how other members of the team contribute to the holistic care of the patients.

The social networks provide learning communities in which knowledge and values are shared and debated. As an advocate, I had to represent my mentee when she was having problems with child care. According to Quinn and Hughes (2007), culture and conflicting demands on new employee’s time and energy leaves them at risk of leaving the organisation. I had to talk to my manager to see if there was a way my mentee can be helped so she can concentrate on her job. As a benchmarker, I have to provide an observable image as a role model for my mentee to imitate. As a benchmarker I had to show my adaptability to change within the work place, which is one of our organisational values. RCN (2018), stated that a mentor is a role model to his mentee, as such should be aware of their own practice and the impact such practice has on their mentees. As a mentor I had to assume all these roles to enhance my mentee’s learning.

The importance of each of the roles was depending on the time and level of my mentee’s development. As well as teaching and coaching the mentee, it is important that record of the mentee’s progress is been documented. A comprehensive documentation of the mentee’s progress is important so that both the mentor and mentee can both see and identify area that need to be improved on. This can only be done through thorough assessment of what the mentee should be doing, what progress have been made so far, and what more needs to be done. For effective assessment to be done I had to determine what assessment method I wanted to use and what I was measuring. In my mentee’s case what she should be doing was trying to meet all the competency on the handbook. Which in her case were twelve of them as stated above? Assessment could be carried out by anyone in the practice setting, which include self-assessment, peer-assessment and assessment by service users. Depending on what was been assessed at the time I had to use one of these methods of assessment. As part of self-assessment my mentee was asked to judge her level of competence against a certain-criteria. Using the hierarchy of competence we were able to identify what stage of competency my mentee was at the initial assessment. According to Gopee (2015), mentees can be too self-critical, or they can be too lenient in their judgement of their performance was stated as some of the weakness of self-assessment. This could worsen mentee’s poor self-image. As a mentor I had to adopt my approach, just as every individual will choice a style of leading, Barr and Dowding (2014) listed various forms of leadership; authoritarian, democratic, developmental, laissez-faire, transformational and task-oriented. For me it was the transformational leadership style is one where the leader works with the team to identify needed change I adopted for my mentee. According to Burns (1978), “a transformational leadership is a process where, leaders and their followers raise themselves to a higher-level morality and motivation.” Such leaders are fully focused on the needs of the members and what they want by involving all to work together. Because of the amount of time a mentor and mentee spend together, it is recommended that the transformational leadership style will be more effective.