Topic 8: Contracting in Mentoring

In order to create an effective relationship, we have to create a solid foundation for our mentoring. In this section we’ll explore the role of the Chemistry Session, and Contracting.

Contracting in Mentoring

ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Mentoring

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Index

Welcome to this topic where we will explore chemistry meetings, coaching boundaries and contracts.Let's get started!

The Chemistry Session

Contracting

Knowing the boundaries

Further Reading

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04

03

02

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01: The Chemistry Session

Before you agree to mentor someone, it’s important to get to know a little bit about each other and ascertain whether you’re a good fit. The Chemistry Session is usually a short meeting, around 30 minutes or so, and is a good opportunity for you to explain more about how mentoring works, find out more about the mentee and their reason for requesting a mentor, and agreeing how you want to work together.

The Chemistry Session

The aims of a Chemistry Session are:

Answer any questions they may have e.g. about confidentiality, how progress will be monitored / reviewed etc.

Discuss and agree the logistics of the coaching e.g. location, length of sessions, how often will you meet etc. If you’re both happy to proceed, you might want to set a date for the first session.

Learn a little more about their circumstances that have led to them requesting coaching, and understand the broad areas they’d like to focus on. This could be a time where you listen out for any potential conflicts of interest.

Explain how mentoring works, so they know what to expect. You may also want to share a little about how you work as a mentor e.g. let them know that you’ll share experiences and advice when relevant, and you’ll also be asking questions so they can reflect on their options to find the right path for them.

Get to know each other, by asking questions about them and sharing relevant information about yourself.

Agree confidentiality, assuring them that the conversations will not be reported

The Chemistry Session

Many mentors have a pre-prepared document explaining how mentoring works, to send to potential mentees ahead of this meeting. This usually covers:

• A brief explanation of what mentoring is and how it works compared to other forms of learning
• The situations that are best suited to mentoring and the typical benefits mentees experience
• What they can expect from you, as their mentor, in terms of mentoring behaviours
• What you, the mentor, will expect from them

The chemistry session is the first stage of building a safe and trusting relationship, creating Psychological Safety for your mentee. By regularly reviewing this contract and ensuring you do what you’ve committed to do, the trust will continue to grow.

02: Contracting

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Assuming you’re both happy to work together, you can agree your Mentoring Contract at the end of the Chemistry Session. There is a mentoring contract template in the Mentoring Portfolio, which you will use for your mentoring practice. As you’ll see, it isn’t a complicated document, and just covers the essential areas.

Contracting

By having an open and honest discussion right at the start of our relationship, we can make sure the mentoring process meets the needs of both mentor and mentee. If there are any problems in the future e.g. with cancellations or rescheduling, we can revisit the contract to reset expectations and decide what to do next. The contract is usually reviewed half way through the number of sessions, to check the mentee wants to continue, review how the mentoring is working for them and explore whether mentor / mentee want to add anything to the contract, to make the mentoring more effective.

Contracting

Chemistry & Contracting Checklist

03: Knowing the Boundaries

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We also need to be aware when we feel the depth of the conversation, or the challenges being presented by your mentee, might need support from someone with a different specialism e.g. counselling, therapy etc. or when we might need to seek advice from a more experience mentor about how to proceed.

Knowing the Boundaries

As outlined in Ethical Guidelines and Mentor Competencies, it’s important we are open and honest about our current level of qualification, experience etc. At this stage, it can be very helpful to explain you’re completing a qualification, and perhaps include in the contract things the mentee can help you with e.g. completing evaluation forms after each session.

Knowing the Boundaries

Signposting:If you feel your mentee could benefit from talking to someone with a different specialism, you can signpost them to other services. It’s always helpful to have your organisation’s Employee Assistance Programme information to hand for these rare occasions. After discussing it with them, you can both decide whether you’re happy to continue the mentoring alongside other support.

ICF Code of Ethics

ICF Core Competencies

To support your understanding of this topic, you might find it helpful to revisit the ICF Core Competencies and look at the ICF Code of Ethics.

Further Reading

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The main topics to ensure are discussed and agreed during Chemistry and Contracting sessions are:

• What mentoring is and is not – how will it work.
• Determine compatibility of mentor and mentee (including identifying conflicts of interest and how these can be managed)
• Agree what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, responsibilities of mentor, mentee and any other relevant stakeholders
• Agree logistics about where the sessions will take place, how many sessions there will be, how long the sessions will be and how often they will be scheduled. As the mentor, you need to make sure both you and your mentee are safe in the physical or online environment for your sessions.
• Create an overall mentoring plan and goals, including measures of success. Revisit this each session to maintain or revise focus.
• Confidentiality, including how information will be shared and stored by the mentor (inline with GDPR and company policy)
• If a third party has commissioned the mentoring (e.g. line manager, HR as part of a development programme), you can agree with your mentee what information will be reported back to the third party, as well as how and when this will be done.