Helpers, not interrogators
Featured in the Continuing Professional Development training manual
By Sandy McMillan
Category: Personal Development
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is very keen to promote Continuing Professional Development, but has found that people may feel unsupported in their CPD, and this is often enough to put them off. We need to take the loneliness out of learning so that people are constantly encouraged and supported by a helpful mentor. This training activity is about beginning to learn how to be that helpful mentor. Moreover, learning to be a mentor is also a highly significant piece of Continuing Professional Development, so the training activity brings a double benefit.
Everyone prepares to be a mutual mentee with a simple exercise that elicits the work activities that motivate (and demotivate) them. This provides a relevant topic for people to explore when acting as a mutual mentor so that the exercise has personal value for everyone. Using OHTs, you explain briefly what mutual mentors do, and how they do it, stressing ‘active listening’ as the most important element. You go on to suggest that the two most important parts of active listening are: the ability to clear your mind and really hear, and the ability to demonstrate that you have heard correctly. This leads to a briefing for the training activity proper, in which people take turns to be mutual mentors and mentees and practise those two skills. You manage the timings and monitor progress; when everyone has had a go, you lead a discussion on the outcomes of the practice activity. The training activity ends with a summary of the participants’ observations and an individual action-planning session.
Who is it for: Developing yourself on your own can be a lonely business, and this training activity shows people how to give one another effective support. Participants learn and practise basic mutual mentoring skills by helping one another to explore their motivators and develop action plans for improving both their CPD and their mentoring abilities.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 2 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:35:00 |
| No of Pages: | 20 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training activity is intended for use by trainers early in any programme in which people need to learn supportive skills. It is a simple introduction to one of the fundamental differences between supportive behaviour and the other ways people might try to help one another; prescribing, advising, instructing, criticising and the like.
Download the training activity, Helpers, not interrogators as featured in the Fenman training manual; Continuing Professional Development