What is Mentorship?

Wikipedia defines Mentorship as:  “a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.  The mentor may be older or younger, but has a certain area of expertise.  It is a learning and development partnership between someone with experience and someone who wants to learn.”

Mentorship from an experienced clinician can play an important role in supporting occupational therapists whether newly graduated, new to Alberta, new to a practice area, or re-entering the profession to achieve their personal and professional goals. The beauty of this partnership is that it can be just as rewarding for the mentor. Through communicating, answering questions, and spending time reflecting about practice, mentors have found that the mentorship partnership has enhanced awareness about their abilities and about the profession as a whole.

The word mentor comes from the character “Mentor” in Homer’s epic tale, The Odyssey. Mentor was a trusted friend of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. When Odysseus fought in the Trojan War, Mentor served as friend and counsel to Odysseus’ son Telemachus. Riverside Webster’s II New College Dictionary 1995 defines a mentor as “a wise and trusted teacher or counselor”. The act of mentoring is a series of ongoing and little successes.  You will be able to make a real impact through consistent and ongoing relationship building.

The SAOT Mentorship Process

The SAOT Mentorship Program provides a framework for a self-directed approach to mentorship.  Collaboratively, mentors and mentees may decide to either engage in a more informal partnership – i.e.: ad-hoc emails, calls, etc., or something more formal whereby a contract is signed, a meeting schedule is established, expectations are communicated, etc. Regardless of which option you choose, SAOT has some resources that can help during this process.

Information for Prospective Mentors

Information for Prospective Mentees

When to Contact SAOT

SAOT Mentorship Program Resources

“A wise teacher learns in the midst of teaching; a wise student teaches in the midst of learning.”
– Mollie Marti

Information for Prospective Mentees

If finding a mentor is something that interests you, and you feel is something you could benefit from, please use the self-directed Find-a-Mentor Online Tool. Once all of your search information has been entered, you will be immediately provided with a list of names of OTs in the mentorship database that meet your criteria. The entire process will only take about 5 minutes!

About the Process

1. Reach out to your potential mentors to introduce yourself, identify your needs and to determine if they are in a position to assist at this time. Consider the following for an initial email or phone conversation;

Notify them that their name and email address/telephone number was provided to you by the SAOT Find-a-Mentor Online Tool.

Identify at least some of your specific needs/goals for mentorship so they can assess if they are able to commit.

Consider:

How you would like to communicate with your mentor? – in-person meetings a few times? Mostly email? Mostly phone? Skype? Zoom?

Your background – What brings you to SAOT’s Mentorship Program?

The type of support you need – e.g. client related questions as they arise, review of assessment tools etc., business development advice, something more…

2. Consider some potential questions to ask a potential Mentor during your initial contact so that you too can gauge fit:

How many years of experience do they have?  Where has their career path taken them?

What is the focus of their practice? Do they have any particular areas of interest/areas of practice expertise/”specialties”?

If you’re a new graduate – you may have some specific questions such as: Can they provide suggestions for the format/content of your resume? Can they provide suggestions for interview preparation?, etc.

3. View the SAOT Mentorship Program Resources to support you on your journey as a mentee!

4. How can we improve? You may receive a periodic email to solicit feedback.  Help us continue to develop the program!
5. When to Contact SAOT

Access the SAOT Members’ Find-A-Mentor Online Tool

… we thank our mentees – for knowing and wanting to learn more, for pursuing excellence and confidence in the practice of OT and, for having the courage and self direction to ask for help.