Mentorship for Health and Social Care Practitioner's
Mentorship for Health Social Care Practitioner’s
Introduction:
Mentoring students in clinical practice is an important aspect of nursing. Nurses or mentors consider their profession to be practice based and work hard to ensure that a larger part of learning and assessment takes place in the clinical area. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2006 defines the term mentor as, the role of the nurse, midwife or health visitor who facilitates learning, supervises and assesses students in the practice setting. While it is recognised that important learning happens in lectures including teaching of concepts, research and critical thinking skills, these are best integrated with skills during carefully supervised practice placements (Stuart, 2003).
The NMC (2008b) states that clinically based nurses have a duty to teach and mentor others while remaining accountable for the delegation of learning tasks. The essay will demonstrate the author’s knowledge and understanding of the role of the mentor and focus on accountability within the assessment process. The author will explore ways of establishing effective working relationships with the student and critically assess the benefits of creating an environment conducive to learning. The author will use Gibbs, 1988 Reflective cycle to explore the process of learning and reflect on his experience of mentoring a student nurse on placement. Pseudonyms have been used to protect the anonymity and privacy of all individuals.
Review and analysis of the learning environment:
The environment being reviewed is a specialist service for people with learning disabilities and complex health needs. Learning on the ward is as important as university learning as it allows students to link theory to practice (Stuart, 2007).
The Department of Health (DH, 2001) recognises that practice placements need to be continuously developed to enable students accessing these placements to gain useful and meaningful experiences. In addition
Introduction:
Mentoring students in clinical practice is an important aspect of nursing. Nurses or mentors consider their profession to be practice based and work hard to ensure that a larger part of learning and assessment takes place in the clinical area. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2006 defines the term mentor as, the role of the nurse, midwife or health visitor who facilitates learning, supervises and assesses students in the practice setting. While it is recognised that important learning happens in lectures including teaching of concepts, research and critical thinking skills, these are best integrated with skills during carefully supervised practice placements (Stuart, 2003).
The NMC (2008b) states that clinically based nurses have a duty to teach and mentor others while remaining accountable for the delegation of learning tasks. The essay will demonstrate the author’s knowledge and understanding of the role of the mentor and focus on accountability within the assessment process. The author will explore ways of establishing effective working relationships with the student and critically assess the benefits of creating an environment conducive to learning. The author will use Gibbs, 1988 Reflective cycle to explore the process of learning and reflect on his experience of mentoring a student nurse on placement. Pseudonyms have been used to protect the anonymity and privacy of all individuals.
Review and analysis of the learning environment:
The environment being reviewed is a specialist service for people with learning disabilities and complex health needs. Learning on the ward is as important as university learning as it allows students to link theory to practice (Stuart, 2007).
The Department of Health (DH, 2001) recognises that practice placements need to be continuously developed to enable students accessing these placements to gain useful and meaningful experiences. In addition