Mentorship strategies/advice?

[neurofreakout]

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Clinical psychology grad student here. I am currently mentoring an upper year undergraduate student/aspiring clinical psychologist through a national society for the field. I took on the role as an opportunity to contribute to my community and strengthen my mentorship skills. In the long-term, I am interested in becoming a clinical supervisor myself so I thought this would be a good place to start honing my skills. Briefly, I am disappointed by my mentee's response to mentorship and am thinking about how to handle this. We have positive face-to-face discussions about applying to grad school, scholarship applications, handling stress etc., and I am left feeling like these interactions are helpful for them. At the same time, when I send materials/emails after our meetings (ex. application resources) they often don't bother to respond. It has also been difficult to schedule times to meet, where I offer time in my schedule but they defer meeting for long periods of time. I understand that I should be tailoring my mentorship style to their needs (right?), but is there something else I should be doing right now to make this experience more positive and beneficial for both of us? I am planning to do a check-in at our next meeting to ask what can be improved from their end. I am also wondering if I should directly ask about their lack of responsiveness. Is that overkill? Advice from more seasoned mentors/supervisors would be appreciated. I am very open to suggestions on mentorship strategies or resources for models of mentoring within the clinical field. Thanks!

 

[Sanman]

I'm glad that you are so enthusiastic about being a mentor. However, IMO, you're trying too hard. Mentees should be the motivated ones. You bring the knowledge. It sounds like your mentee may not want everything you are offering. Take your lead from their interest.

 

[summerbabe]

From a stages of change model perspective, it sounds like they are in a contemplative stage, whereas you’re further along at the preparation or action stage.

I think it’s great that you’re so eager to help and it sounds like your mentee is benefitting from the info/tips provided so far but steps like applying to programs might not be in the cards right now, which is totally fine.

Perhaps asking them what they still want/need from mentoring and letting them guide the remaining apts could be helpful.

 

[foreverbull]

I was assigned a mentee through an APA division at some point near the end of grad school and barely had any contact with the mentee (on their side). The student just wasn’t that interested and contact fell off quickly. We may have had one phone call that lasted a few minutes and that was it? I was disappointed, but this isn’t uncommon. Some folks aren’t wanting as much interaction or support despite asking for it initially through the organizational channels.

I do think it’s a bit rude to not acknowledge the materials you provided with a “thank you” for your time and energy, but I wouldn’t look into any of this too deeply or worry about it. It’s just the nature of mentee/mentor relationships. Sounds like they’re busy and not as interested in regular support/checkins.

Sounds to me like you really enjoy mentoring! Maybe you can incorporate that into your career?

 

[WisNeuro]

Mentoring undergrads/grads has always been very hot or miss, but usually miss in my experience. I stopped doing that some time ago. Supervision has been much more interactive and rewarding. And, through that, you'll likely naturally develop some further mentorship relationships as those trainees go into early career and such. That's probably been the most fun and fulfilling, helping those trainees as they get to be early career colleagues and seeing them do well. Still a few that I keep in contact with regularly.

 

[neurofreakout]

Thanks everyone for your input, this is helpful. I'm going to temper my expectations to be more in line with those of my mentee and follow their lead. This is a good lesson for guiding my mentorship/supervision experiences in the future as well.