Mentorship is underscored by a climate of safety and trust, where candidates can develop their sense of professional identity.
The Mentorship Process
The Mentorship process focuses on professional concerns and relates to practice experience to support candidates to better understand social work philosophy, become more self-aware, and refine their knowledge and skills. It is a process of critical reflection, to support the candidate to develop and refine their framework for practice inclusive of our Standards of Practice and Codes of Ethics guiding documents.
The mentorship process is designed to decrease professional stress and provide the candidate with nurturing conditions that complement their success and encourage self-efficacy. Mentorship is underscored by a climate of safety and trust, where candidates can develop their sense of professional identity.
The process is distinct from administrative supervision that social workers commonly receive from their employer. Administrative supervision is the implementation of administrative methods that enable social workers to provide effective services to clients. Administrative supervision is oriented toward agency policy or organizational demands and focuses on a supervisee’s level of functioning on the job and work assignment.