Coaching and Mentoring

Coaching and mentoring have a key role to play in enabling colleagues throughout our system to meet the health, social and economic challenges that we currently face.
At its simplest, coaching and mentoring provide support to individuals, adding to their personal flexibility and resilience. They both help to:

Develop self-awareness
Clarify or find a sense of purpose and balance
Help the individual to manage and enhance the impact of self on their work relationships and environment

Having a coach or mentor can also help people to greater support to others, instilling in themselves a coaching style when working with peers, their team, and their line managers.
For more information on coaching and mentoring across the LLR Health and Social Care System please follow the link below

Coaching vs Mentoring

Coaching and mentoring are terms that are often used interchangeably but intrinsically different.

COACHING

01.

A relationship that tends to have a set duration, agreed at the beginning, during contracting. The timeframe can be reviewed and reset

02.

Structured, with regular, scheduled meetings

03.

Short term, (sometimes time-limited) and focused on specific areas of development

04.

The coach is not required to have direct experience of the coachee’s role and may not be more senior

05.

Focus is generally on personal and professional development issues at work

06.

Agenda is set by the coachee around the achievement of specific goals

07.

The expectation that coaches have a specific qualification and have ongoing supervision

MENTORING

01.

Usually, an ongoing relationship which can last for long periods of time, sometimes as long as the employee life cycle.

02.

More informal; meeting as and when the mentee needs advice, guidance, and support

03.

More long term with a broader view of the person

04.

The mentor is usually more experienced and/or qualified than the mentee. Often a senior person in the organisation or profession who can pass on knowledge, experience and open up new opportunities.

05.

Tends to focus on professional/career development

06.

The agenda is set by the mentee; the mentor provides guidance… Not necessarily goal-based.

07.

Mentors may be senior people from within the organisation but may not have a specific qualification or training in mentoring; they have built up their skills through experience.

Note: It is important to remember that mentoring is not counseling or therapy – through the mentor may help the mentee to access more specialised avenues of help if it becomes apparent that this would be the best way forward. If you are still unsure whether you would benefit more from coaching or mentoring, then please feel free to get in touch. See the back page for further information detailing organisational, regional, and national offers.

Our pool of coaches and mentors

We are currently recruiting coaches and mentors and are looking to hear from anyone working within LLR who has mentoring qualifications or who is qualified at ILM5 (or equivalent) in coaching.

You will be offered CPD as a member of the pool.

In order to measure activity and take-up we will also require you to feedback the number of coaching /mentoring hours you undertake each month as well as any emerging themes as this may influence future work within other workstreams.

If you would like to get involved

Request a coach or mentor

If you are interested in accessing a coach you can find one suitable for you through the NHS Leadership Academy Coaching / Mentoring Hub. Coaching and mentoring is an inclusive offering available to all professions within the NHS and social care, irrespective of pay grade, clinical and non-clinical roles.

If you would like further information on Coaching / Mentoring, please contact us and our coaching coordinator will be in touch with you soon!