The CRANAplus LINKS Men­tor­ing Pro­gram con­nects men­tors and mentees from around Aus­tralia. It focus­es on encour­ag­ing career devel­op­ment and build­ing capa­bil­i­ties in clin­i­cal lead­er­ship, deci­sion- mak­ing, net­work­ing, and resilience dur­ing place­ments and recent­ly gained employment. 

How­ev­er, the LINKS online learn­ing mod­ules can also be used as a pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment tool to cre­ate a men­tor pro­gram in your work­place, just as Janelle Stephens has done. 

Janelle is respon­si­ble for the tran­si­tion to prac­tice pro­gram at Mersey Com­mu­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal in North West Tasmania.

She says, ​“Each year I have grads who strug­gle with their tran­si­tion, and I am always look­ing for ways to help them.” 

“I had been think­ing about a men­tor pro­gram, and the course I com­plet­ed with CRANAplus inspired me to put it into place.” 

Janelle devel­oped the Min­der Project to address the need for new grad­u­ate nurs­es to have a men­tor or con­fi­dant with whom they can ask ques­tions, dis­cuss con­cerns or open up about prob­lems they may be fac­ing. It is a strat­e­gy to aid in decreas­ing stress and anx­i­ety dur­ing ear­ly practice. 

She says, ​“Tran­si­tion to prac­tice nurs­es have NUMs and ANUMs, edu­ca­tors, facil­i­ta­tors and pre­cep­tors, but may not have the con­fi­dence or have devel­oped a trust­ed rela­tion­ship with these peers to be able to com­fort­ably dis­close con­cerns or seek advice. This pro­gram aims to match an expe­ri­enced and junior nurse, with a com­mon inter­est or goal, to be able to devel­op and grow a pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship based on trust, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and career progression.”

Expe­ri­enced nurs­es in the hos­pi­tal can com­plete a ques­tion­naire, with the results help­ing pair them with a new grad­u­ate. Pri­or to com­menc­ing, min­ders are also asked to com­plete the CRANAplus LINKS men­tor­ing mod­ule, and, once com­plete, are paired with a mindee. 

Min­ders and min­dees are encour­aged to meet for cof­fee once or twice a month, and Janelle has received spon­sor­ship from the Mersey Hos­pi­tal vol­un­teer aux­il­iary to fund cof­fee vouch­ers for these meet­ings. The pair will devel­op a men­tor­ing plan that details goals and com­mu­ni­ca­tions meth­ods, and men­tors will be a lis­ten­ing ear, reflect­ing on their own career jour­ney and pro­vid­ing encour­age­ment and advice. 

The pro­gram is mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial, with min­dees gain­ing a trust­ed pro­fes­sion­al to con­fide in, an ease of tran­si­tion into the work­place and a chance to grow their pro­fes­sion­al net­work, and min­ders being able to accrue CPD points and devel­op skills for edu­ca­tion and lead­er­ship roles.

With­in the program’s first year, Janelle has matched nine min­ders and min­dees, and has seen some great suc­cess stories. 

She says, ​“I have enlist­ed a phys­io­ther­a­pist to be a min­der for a new grad – this new grad has a Chi­nese back­ground and was strug­gling with com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so I enlist­ed a Chi­nese phys­io­ther­a­pist work­ing in Aus­tralia to be his min­der and the ben­e­fits have been amazing.” 

“Anoth­er suc­cess has been a new grad­u­ate RN who was nav­i­gat­ing stress and anx­i­ety and required leave for men­tal health rea­sons. Her pair­ing with a min­der was writ­ten into her return to work plan.” 

Janelle is hop­ing to roll the pro­gram out to the North West Region­al Hos­pi­tal soon and expand the scope of par­tic­i­pants to oth­er health­care pro­fes­sion­als and dif­fer­ent lev­els of nursing. 

She says, ​“Thank you CRANAplus for your amaz­ing online course – it has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on ensur­ing we main­tain a high stan­dard of men­tor­ing in the program.”