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The mentoring system is a training and guidance experience important to the NCUC Community. At the core of the activity is the guidelines provided by the mentor to the mentee, where the development of the mentee is the key focus.

The main point with mentoring is that the focus is determined by the mentee. They must lead in identifying issues and, with paths drawn by the mentor, resolve them. The mentor is not there to provide ‘the answers’, but to guide the mentee towards ‘the answer’ that is right for them. 

Engaging in a mentoring experience is beneficial for mentor and mentee as well as the NCUC as a whole. The specific benefits for the mentor are:

• Broadening of skills and knowledge of current Policy Development Processes
• Provision of a new dimension to current Policy efforts
• Can increase personal and professional networks
• Seeing others develop from your experience(s) 

• Interest in being a mentor – if asked to become a mentor you must think carefully about the workload, whether you actually want to do it, you can say No.
• Time Availability – mentoring will require a time commitment so look at your existing time commitments and truly evaluate whether you can spare the time.
• Appropriate knowledge and skills – you should be involved in a similar PDP or WG to that of the mentee in order than you can provide guidance from an understanding of the area they are interested in.
• Listening skills – are you able to actively listen to others, not interrupting but listening and reflecting back what the mentee is saying.
• Accessible and supportive – as the learning is done by the mentee you will need to be prepared to support them towards achieving their goals. You need to let them reach conclusions at their own pace and not impose your views or suggestions.
• Trustworthy – the issues discussed during mentoring sessions must be treated in the strictest of confidence and therefore the mentee needs to believe that they can trust you and come forward with any issues they may have. 

As a mentor, you will be viewed as a more experienced member of NCUC who is willing and able to pass on the benefit of that experience. However, your role is not simply to ‘tell’ the mentee what to do, the role of the mentor is to:

• Listen and be supportive of their learning journey
• Provide non-judgemental support
• Provide guidance on issues raised
• Establish and clarify achievable goals for mentee
• Pass on knowledge and experience 

Once you have agreed to be a mentor, you need to agree with the mentee how the learning will work. This should ideally be done at the beginning of the first meeting.

Below is a suggested list of the topics to include in the discussion:

• Meetings
  • Frequency and length
  • Location
  • Formal vs. Informal
  • How will the accomplishment of goals be tracked?
• How will communication outside of meetings be dealt with; method, turnaround, frequency etc.? 

The mentoring experience between you and the mentee will be expected to finish if either:

six months expires, or either party requests it.

The mentor experience is an in-depth training experience for a period of time. This means that if either the mentor or the mentee wishes so, they may not be involved in this experience anymore. It could also occur that the mentee is allocated another mentor, and the mentor may also be allocated to a different mentee. 

Contact the program coordinator if you have any questions.