Topic 10: Reflection & Supervision

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ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Mentoring

Reflection and Supervision

Welcome to this topic, where we will explore why reflective practice is an essential part of effective mentoring and continuous development as a mentor.

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References

Continuous Professional Development

Supervision

The Johari Window

Introduction

Welcome to this topic where we will be exploring reflective practice & supervision. Take your time going through each section and complete the activities. Let's get started!

Index

01: Introduction

Let's begin

“We don’t learn from an experience, we learn by reflecting on that experience” (John Dewey)

Introduction

Reflective practice is an essential part of effective mentoring and continuous development as a mentor. It allows us to pause, think about what just happened, identify the strengths, identify what could have gone better and what we plan to do next time. This forms part of safe and ethical practice as a mentor. The EMCC requires mentors to:

• Engage in regular reflective practice to support their learning and on-going professional development
• Reflect regularly on their client work and mentoring practice and their professional and personal learning and development

Julie Starr (2014) says that by placing attention on something you want to get better at, you increase your self-awareness of how you currently do it, and gain insight about how you can learn. She suggests that keeping reflection notes is an easy and effective way to help you learn faster, by getting your unconscious mind involved in the process

The main opportunity to reflect is following each mentoring session. In your Mentoring Portfolio, there is a template to complete after each session, asking you to think about how the session went and specific skills / behaviours you demonstrated. This form asks you simple questions, which are a great starting point for reflective practice e.g. How well did I listen? How was my questioning technique? In what ways was I ethical and non-judgmental? How well did I give feedback? There is also a feedback form for your mentee to complete after each session. This provides you with information about their experience, what went well and what could be even better, to feed into your reflections. We all have blind spots, and feedback is essential to help us learn how other people experience us.

Introduction

Introduction - Activity

Borton's Reflective Model

Explore both Borton's Reflective Model and the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Use the templates to reflect after your next meeting or coaching session. Consider how you found the process. What did you learn?

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Reflection Models

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02: The Johari Window

Activity: watch the "The Johari Window" pearl of wisdom®

Another helpful tool to support reflection and learning, is the Johari Window. Named after the two psychologists who developed it in the 1950s, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (combining their first names, Joe and Harry). As a tool, it helps to explore what we know about ourselves, through reflection and observation. It also helps to consider where we need to get feedback, to learn how others experience us.Watch this short video to learn more about the Johari Window.

Asking our mentees for feedback is an essential part of our ongoing development as a mentor. The EMCC states that an effective mentor:

• Monitors and reflects on the effectiveness of the whole process
• Requests feedback from client on mentoring/coaching
• Receives and accepts feedback in a constructive way

The Johari Window

The Johari Window

This tool can also be helpful for us to use with mentees. We may introduce them to the model, and explore what they know / don’t know about themselves and how they could gather more information. Or we might just use the model to guide our questions, supporting them to gain greater self-awareness and build their emotional intelligence.

Let's begin

03: Supervision

The Role of Mentor Supervisors in Supporting, Challenging, and Developing Mentors

Mentors can learn a lot from self-reflection and gathering feedback from their mentees. To support deeper learning, mentoring supervision is an essential part of mentor development and professional practice. Hawkins & Shohet suggest that an effective mentor can’t maintain the quality of their work alone. We can’t continue to rely on our initial training, because the needs of our clients and our organisations are constantly changing. Best practice is continually improving. ‘We need to be continually learning, not just new knowledge and skills, but developing our personal capacity, for our own being is the most important resource we all use in our work.’ (Hawkins & Shohet, 2023). This is where Supervision can add real value.

Supervision

Supervision

Supervision can take many forms

One to one supervision: you work with a qualified Supervisor to discuss your current mentoring issues, challenges and development areas. This might take place 3 – 4 times a year. Group supervision: you work with a qualified Supervisor, alongside a group of other mentors. You get the benefit of hearing what other mentors want to focus on, learning from their experiences, and getting the benefit of a range of perspectives. Peer Supervision: Working with one or more similarly qualified mentors, you support each other to discuss current challenges, issues and development areas. This works well in many organisations.

Let's begin

04: Continuous Professional Development

Continuous Professional Development

As an effective mentor, it’s essential we also keep our knowledge and skills up to date, keeping track of the latest learning in the mentoring field. This programme will give you lots of learning to put into practice and refine over the coming months. So this is an invitation to start thinking about where your ongoing development will come from.Does your organisation offer any short CPD sessions for mentors, coaches or managers that you could join several times a year? Have a look at the professional mentoring bodies e.g. EMCC, and see what CPD courses you can join. In Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he talks about Sharpening the Saw. This is about preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have – you. This means giving attention to all aspects of your wellbeing, mental and physical. CPD and Supervision are a great way to invest in yourself, making sure you remain supported, motivated and enthusiastic about the support you provide to others, and the great results they achieve with you at their side.

References

• CIPD (2023) Mentoring & Mentoring Factsheet. Available online at https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/mentoring-mentoring-factsheet/#creating-a-mentoring-culture [accessed 6/12/23]
• EMCC (2016) Global Code of Ethics. Available online at: https://www.emccglobal.org/de/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/09/EMCC-Code_of_Ethics_2016.pdf [last accessed 7/8/24]
• Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (2012) Supervision in the Helping Professions. 4th ed. McGraw Hill Open University Press
• Covey S. (2020) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Simon & Schuster. UK.
• Starr J. (2014) The Mentoring Manual. Pearson. UK.

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The Role of Mentor Supervisors in Supporting, Challenging, and Developing Mentors Mentor Supervisors are experienced coaches and / or mentors, who provide support to other mentors. They will be able to help you with specific barriers or challenges you’re facing with a mentee. They will be able to share tools and techniques that might be helpful for your practice. They will challenge you to look at different aspects of your professional practice and consider how you can continue developing. ‘Mentoring can be a challenging activity for both internal and external mentors. Those involved in mentoring need structured opportunities to reflect on their practice, either in one-to-one or group sessions. Such opportunities can provide support and help mentors continuously develop their skills, while also acting as an important quality assurance for organisations and a source of organisational learning’ (CIPD 2023)