The professional context – Mentorship in Healthcare Settings
Staffordshire University School of Nursing and Midwifery offers a professionally based mentorship module – Mentorship in Healthcare Settings. This highly focused qualification is a professional requirement for any healthcare practitioner whose role involves them in providing mentorship to healthcare students in a practice environment – this could be in a hospital, GP practice, nursing home or other healthcare setting.
Who is it for?
The mentorship module is for nurses, midwives, specialist community public health nurses and operating department practitioners. The aims of the module are to enable health professionals to act as a positive role model, facilitate learning and assess clinical competence of healthcare students, and to be able to fulfil the supportive role of mentor.
What does it cover?
The module focuses on developing the role and responsibilities of the health care practitioner in supporting and mentoring students and other learners undergoing learning and development in a practice setting, exploring throughout the varied aspects of the mentorship role and relating to underlying theory. This includes:
- The creation and maintenance of an environment for learning in clinical practice which fosters effective practice
- The responsibilities and accountability of a mentor
- The mentor as an evidence-based practitioner within an inter-professional environment
- Consideration of the establishment of effective working relationships to support learning within practice
- The facilitation of learning utilising relevant theories that aid integration of learning from practice and educational experiences
- Assessing clinical practice and the implementation of approved assessment procedures and the importance of accountability for the confirmation of student competency
- The professional aspects of the role of a mentor in relation to one’s own practice and the possible contribution to the development of others
- Use of constructive feedback to improve student performance
- Planning and delivery of learning experiences appropriate to the individual student’s needs
- Diversity and equality in relation to a student’s experiences within practice
- Standards and framework progression including Triennial Review and Sign off mentors
As well as delivering this module as part of its normal curriculum offer the School of Nursing and Midwifery can also work flexibly with healthcare organisations to tailor delivery. The School recently worked with Extracare, a charitable trust – http://www.extracare.org.uk/ to support 10 of their registered nurses to complete the mentorship module over 3 days with an additional day of tutorial support. This proved to be a highly successful model which resulted in Extracare becoming an excellent placement for our student nurses who have valued it as an additional learning opportunity
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