6.7 Mentoring Handbook
Mentoring is an informal and flexible approach to leadership, supervision and professional development. It involves the mentor and protégé setting goals that are focused on the protégé's professional and personal development needs.
Mentoring relationships can occur between a mentor and a protégé or a small group of protégés, or it may involve peers who act as mentors for each other.
Formal mentoring involves the development of structured programs for the progression of the mentoring relationship. In contrast, informal mentoring programs are formed spontaneously and rely on natural rapport between the mentor and protégé.
Irrespective of the type of arrangement, mentoring involves:
- The mentor encouraging the protégé/s to find solutions themselves, rather than acting as the expert and simply providing answers
- The protégé/s drawing on the mentor's experience to meet goals.
Benefits of Mentoring for the AOD field and AOD workers
- Building and sustaining skills and knowledge
- Offering support for AOD related work practices
- Facilitating work practice change
- Acts as an incentive to attract skilled and qualified workers to the field and to retain those already in the field
- Links different professions and institutions within the field
- Offers support and accessible professional development for those working in rural and remote areas
- Offers support during periods of change.
- Ongoing evaluation.