Читать книгу Better Aged Care Professionals Ask Better Questions - Lindsay Jr. Tighe - Страница 11

Whilst I acknowledge that there are many more hats that we wear, the final one I would like to consider here is that of the mentor. There are many ways to describe what a mentor does, but over the years I have settled on there being two clear components to the mentoring roles. The first is that the mentor is there to support another person in their development, and to do this there is an expectation that they will share their wisdom and knowledge from their journey so far. The other feature that defines a mentor is that they have ‘been there and done that’; their role is to guide another person so as to enable them to successfully deal with the challenges that they are confronted with on their journey.

The mentor is a role model and generally someone to whom you aspire. Certainly, when I have utilised mentors in the past I have had a huge amount of respect for them. It has been my desire that, one day and in some way, I would be like them, and my expectations were that they would show me how to reach my goal. Currently, I have a mentor who is a Professor of Philosophy, and whilst I don’t aspire to reach that position, one day I would like to become a wiser person and trust that through the mentoring I receive I am on the road to achieving that aim.

To reiterate, the role of a mentor is a very valuable one that can have a profound impact on people, particularly in their learning, growth and development. We frequently act as informal mentors to others, often without even realising it, and we may also take on more formal recognised mentoring roles with staff or people in more structured settings. Again, it should be emphasised that there is a prerequisite to wearing the mentoring hat in that you will be expected to bring your expertise, knowledge, wisdom and ideas to the table.

We have explored, then, a number of roles that sit traditionally at the ‘teller’ end of our line, and I trust that you can see that in some form or another the role of a professional takes on all of these aspects. Whilst I absolutely accept that aged care professionals who fulfil their roles well won’t operate entirely from the ‘teller’ space, I ask you to bear with me as I continue to approach these explanations from a purely ‘black and white’ perspective.