1. Professionalising the Mentor: from transitional identity to sustainable practice Sally Blake blakes2@cardiff.ac.uk

2. Professionalising the mentor: the impact of formal mentor training within professional groups on future practice Professionalising the Mentor: exploring the evolving identity from informal practitioner to trained mentor Professionalising the Mentor: from transitional identity to sustainable practice

3. Mentoring going mainstream What intrigued me: Informal, organic learning practices being recognised, standardised and accredited (HEA, GMC) Mentoring becoming embedded within professional standards and competency frameworks (NMC, GMC, WG teacher standards) Growth in schemes – standardisation of definitions, processes, training What was bugging me: Observed ambivalence amongst mentors in formal training “I can’t have been doing it properly” Might formalising practice engage or disengage the mentor? Are mentors getting the same deal in formal mentoring schemes?

4. So what does it mean for a mentor?: Formal mentoring scheme Organisation & sponsor expectations Professions and standards Mentoring “experts” “Professional as Mentor” “Professional” mentor

5. Research questions Does exposure to a formal mentoring scheme influence the evolving identity of participating mentors? How do mentors develop their mentoring identity through experience? Do formal mentor scheme principles and professional standards become integrated within evolving mentor identity, or are they held apart? What are the implications for mentor scheme designers and trainers? Does mentor training and support serve the mentor as equally as the scheme, sponsors and mentees?

6. Methodology Interpretivist paradigm, inductive approach Phenomological focus – the mentor is the context, not a scheme IPA method, based on hermeneutic approach, allowing my experience to play a role in the research Focus on the lived experience of a purposeful sample of:

7. Small sample – easy (or was it?) Access via professional schemes – what was in it for them in a mentor-centric study? Some good candidates and referrals but not actively mentoring Easier when some sponsor intervention, but this wasn’t quite phenomenology… Logistics meant mixed method interviews

8. PseudonymRoleMenteesLocation Current Scheme Mentor 1 ‘Ceri’ Retired assistant head teacherNewly qualified teachers (NQTs)South Wales Cardiff University Masters in Educational Practice (MEP) Mentor 2 ‘Sarah’ Local Authority Education Adviser Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) West Wales Cardiff University Masters in Educational Practice (MEP) Mentor 3 ‘Shamira’ Doctor: Consultant Early career physicians (CMTs) Surrey Royal College of Physicians Mentor 4 ‘John’ Doctor: Consultant Early career physicians (CMTs) London Royal College of Physicians

9. Data Mentor was primary source of data Single, in-depth interview of about an hour Semi-structured, few core questions, optional prompts Invitation to add further reflections after 6-8 weeks Researcher reflections by audio diary – a quality assurance measure

10. Few questions – easy (or was it?) Too many vs too few Too directive to produce consistent data vs very open, not knowing what could emerge from the mentors Keeping my early assumptions out of the design Piloting was key to check for sense Link to research questions Design takes time! Hard to be consistent on the day Underlying Research QuestionsOpening interview question How do mentors develop their own mentoring identity through experience? Tell me about your experiences of becoming a mentor? How does exposure to a formal mentoring scheme influence the evolving identity of participating mentors? What does mentoring mean to your professional identity/sense of self in your professional role? How does exposure to a formal mentoring scheme influence the evolving identity of participating mentors? (Primary question) Tell me about the most significant things you feel you will (or won’t) take forward from your formal mentoring experiences into mentoring in general?

11. IPA analysis takes time too – lots!

12. Things I learned from the experience Used a tested template (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009) 3 readings – general, linguistic, interpretative Listen, listen, listen before beginning analysis Transcription service saved time Experiment with ways of capturing and grouping themes Don’t start work on new data until the job’s done with one participant Embrace the abstraction process, even though the person becomes “data” Don’t look too hard for the big themes to show up – mull over, go away from it, let it percolate

13. Trial end error...

15. The “Aha” (Toploinski & Reber 2010) Informal mentorship – relationship and skills developed through the professional role, but experience wasn’t recognised as mentoring: the tacit state Scheme mentorship – clarity of role, but challenging experiences: the formal state Future mentorship – moving neither backwards nor forwards: the transient state Formal scheme mentorship can strengthen an uncertain mentoring identity but doesn’t necessarily sustain it, nor foster future engagement with mentoring Note of caution: the research interview as a reflective tool, surfacing the tacit state for some of the mentors – their “aha” moment, but my influence

16. Tacit mentor Formal mentor Transient mentor Identity Stage Unformed ego ‘Novice’ Formed ego ‘Developing’ Reformed Ego ‘Reflective’ Identity Strength Protocols, theory, approaches Process development, dynamics Supervision, learning from/with other mentors, use of mentoring frameworks Bachkirova, T. (2011) Developmental Coaching: Working With The Self: Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International Merrick, L., Stokes, p.. (2003) ‘Mentor development and supervision: a passionate joint enquiry’, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching 1 (1), pp 1-9

17. Implications for practice and professions Professions increasingly see mentoring as part of professional roles/standards, but tacit mentors don’t always recognise their role in mentorship Profession and employer agendas sometimes don’t align e.g. time Formal mentorship helps to crystallise mentoring identity Mentors at different identity stages have different development and support needs To engage and retain mentors, development should be holistic and embrace all identity states, going beyond briefing/skills Formal scheme mentors thrive in communities of practice and would benefit from reflective practice and ongoing learning when moving to the transient state Would generic mentoring standards engage “professionals as mentors” as opposed to “professional mentors”?

18. What could take this forward? Testing the model in a longitudinal study – what engagement actually looks like over time More professions and schemes involved More researchers/data sources – this was my subjective interpretation of a single data source Include mentor experience of different mentoring models Not just first time formal mentors – some may work within multiple professional schemes Looking at long-term effectiveness of mentor development