The aim of this scheme is for those experienced in OH to provide mentoring and coaching for those, within the multi-disciplinary team, considering a career within Occupational Health.
The Mentee will benefit from the mentor’s experience and knowledge of OH and put this into the perspective of OH as a career. Mentors will empower mentees to take charge of their own direction, focusing on their potential to enter the speciality, access training and professional development to thrive.
The benefits of mentoring
Mentoring is based on mutual understanding of mentor and mentee rather than set outputs. This is usually on an informal basis, assisting with professional achievement. It can be particularly powerful at times of career change such as for those entering OH, but more difficult to access when the speciality is outside mainstream NHS.
For Mentors
The mentor will share knowledge and passion of OH as a career and provide support to the growth of the OH workforce. Mentors could mentor a mentee from different professional groups. There are great benefits for the mentor. From experience, mentors enjoy the interaction with clinicians from differing backgrounds which widens their and own professional development.
Further information and learning:
- TED talks here.
- Research on mentoring here.
- An eLearning offer from NHSE
- SOM professional development
For Mentees
The benefit will be provision of support and tools to make an informed decision with:
- Provision of an understanding of the field of OH as a specialty and signposting to reliable information.
- Identifying transferable skills that could support a move.
- Developing an understanding of different task requirements within OH and varying delivery mechanisms to aid decision making in the choice of role.
- Providing resources to prepare and upskill.
- Signposting to shadow opportunities.
- Building confidence for a move.
- Widening professional networking within the specialty with the introduction to membership and networking groups.
- Advice on further training and education within OH.
- Improving the chances of obtaining a role in OH by supporting networking opportunities.
Next steps
If you are experienced in OH nursing or work in OH as an allied health professional and want to support the specialty, SOM, NSOH, FOHN and iOH with providers such as PAM Group and Cordell Health encourage you to apply for this new opportunity. Training support will be provided to mentors and then an offer put to Mentees to match with those trained based on location. No re-imbursement is provided.
How to apply
Please send details for review of:
- your experience in OH
- your experience in supporting others
- what you feel you could provide in the role of mentor to a potential new entrant to the speciality
in 250 words, with your contact details to nick.pahl@som.org.uk or complete this NSOH form here
