GUIDANCE FOR MENTORING SCHEMES
4.0 Mentoring
4.1 Reported mentoring is when the organisation recruits participants to a mentoring scheme managed by a coordinator who provides support for the mentoring partnership , provides learning and development for both mentors and mentees and monitors and evaluates the quality and impact of the scheme . In addition , all mentoring that is part of a structured scheme in the University works with the framework of roles and responsibilities outlined here .
4.2 Roles and responsibilities
In reported mentoring schemes , in addition to the mentor and mentee , there will be a scheme co-ordinator with a series of responsibilities for the day-to-day operation of the scheme and a scheme sponsor who will have oversight of the scheme and has a monitoring role . The responsibilities for these roles are set out below and the level of support and guidance provided by a scheme sponsor and / or coordinator will be determined by the needs of the particular mentoring scheme .
4.2.1 What a scheme sponsor does is to :
• Establish the purpose of the mentoring scheme and provide terms of reference for the scheme . This may include clarifying the boundaries of the scheme .
• Identify who the scheme is targeted at – both mentees and mentors – and identify how mentoring will help individuals and the wider benefits sought .
• Establish appropriate scheme management and administration , including clarification of the role of the scheme co-ordinator .
• Work with the scheme co-ordinator to establish selection / nomination criteria to assure a level of quality in the approach to mentoring . In some mentoring schemes the mentors may be allocated / invited to be mentors . For other mentoring schemes mentoring may be a voluntary activity . In the latter case , the scheme will need to be communicated to potential mentors with information about how mentors can apply and find out more about the scheme .
• Work with the scheme co-ordinator to establish how the scheme will be reviewed to assess impact , ensuring that confidence in the scheme is not compromised and that the outcomes can be reviewed without breaching the principle of confidentiality . This includes identifying the measures to be used , how to capture the outcomes for mentees and mentors and how to assess the impact of the scheme and the benefits to the university . For some schemes a longitudinal evaluation may be used to assess the benefits and impact over time .
• Provide a clear process for mentees to raise any concerns or formal complaints .
• Determine how many mentees the scheme will be able to resource / needs to resource , and how much time a mentee will need to invest in the mentoring relationship .
• Determine how many mentors are needed / are available and how much time mentors will need to contribute .
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