Happy Birthday to The Association’s mentoring programme!

The mentoring programme is seven years old! Since 2018 137 mentors have supported 197 members who are in the consolidation phase of their qualification.

Key developments along the way:

·        In person Mentor Skills training – the foundation of the programme from the start. We delivered a day of mentor skills training in person at two venues in the first two years.

·        Online Mentor Skills training – since 2021 we have moved to online Mentor Skills Training, to make mentoring more accessible, and able to reach more participants.

·        Meet Your Mentor – from the beginning of the programme we offered a facilitated first meeting between mentor and mentee. This is an opportunity to meet in a welcoming online space with Mountain Training and Association staff there to answer questions and facilitate the introductions, before meeting one another independently.

·        Development of e-learning modules – introduced in 2024, with separate modules for mentors and mentees. The e-learning covers what to expect from mentoring, the requirements of the programme, how much time commitment is required from participants and roles and responsibilities.

·        Development of resources - we have listened to feedback from participants and have developed a bank of resources to support the mentoring journey. Recent examples are on Creating Rapport and guidance on Self Esteem and Motivation. LINK TO RESOURCES

Feedback report

We have been collecting feedback from all participants twice a year. The full report is here.

Highlights are:

Mentors:

• Say they would like more contact with the Association during the mentoring year. In 2024 we offered two opportunities for that year's cohort of mentors to meet online and share their experiences of mentoring so far. This gave them the opportunity to ask questions of Association staff and clarify expectations about their role.

• Report that where a relationship wasn’t successful, the reasons were often to do with geographical distance making it difficult to meet up in person. This appears to be a key factor for mentors as well as mentees, with meeting in person referenced repeatedly as either an aspiration or a positive thing. Where possible the Association tries to match mentors and mentees who are based within a reasonable distance of one another.

• Have asked for more training opportunities. In 2025 we offered two online Mentor Skills refresher training dates. 30 mentors attended and they have re-entered the pool of mentors participating in the programme in 2025.

Mentees:

• Report that having a mentor gives them confidence, encouragement, reassurance.

• Appreciate having a safe place to ask questions.

• Say that speaking to their mentor enables them to realise that they know more than they think they know.

• Also value meeting with their mentors in person.

Some mentees expect their mentors to give them further training, which is not the role of the mentor. The Association address this in the online mentee training and will emphasize this more strongly in 2025.

In summary, the programme is performing well, feedback from participants is on the whole positive and we are responding to suggestions and requests for further resources in a creative way.

It’s a huge privilege for us as staff to facilitate the programme and support the mentoring process. We embrace that responsibility as a serious ongoing commitment for the Association. If you have read this far, thank you and any questions or feedback are always welcome at: mentoring@mountain-training.org

Note the discrepancy between numbers of mentees and numbers passing in 2024. This is because there is commonly a time gap between joining the mentoring programme and taking an assessment. Results are not usually seen in the same year.