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Becoming a Mentor / Minimum Qualifications
Recently, NCIEC surveys were completed by mentors and mentees to begin to identify the most effective practices in mentorship. In the following text, results from the survey are applied to specific questions related to becoming a mentor.
- Certification: an overwhelming majority of mentors indicated that holding professional certification in interpreting is fundamental to becoming a mentor.
- Available: mentees most often chose to work with mentors who gave time and attention to the mentorship.
- Ability to provide support: mentors who were the most sought out were those known to be nurturing and supportive.
- Patient and respectful: mentors who are known to be patient and respectful are among those sought out most often by mentees.
- Trained: 89% of respondents felt training was essential in becoming a mentor. Mentors who received formal mentor training left feeling well prepared and confident to work with others in mentorship. Training programs offering the widest range of mentoring tools and longest duration were seen as the most valuable.
- Experience: practice working in the interpreting profession and familiarity with an assortment of settings and specializations help prepare the mentor to respond to many of the issues that confront the mentee.
- Specialty Skills: mentors should be trained to deliver both language-specific and interpretation-specific mentoring services. Mentors that were known to be skilled in a specialty area were often sought out to help mentees in those same specialty areas.
- Mentoring tools: people seek mentorship for myriad reasons and come with an array of learning styles, needs, and experiences. Therefore, the mentor needs to have a broad understanding and an extensive collection of skills and abilities, or mentoring tools, to be successful.
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Q:"How long are mentorships and what type of activities should I expect?"
A: It is widely accepted that for change to occur, the experiences leading to that change must have scope and sequence, or in other words, they must occur over time. In a survey of current mentorship programs, an average of eight to ten sessions was most common. NCIEC recommends that, in most instances, mentors and mentees commit to no less than 10 working sessions.
The topics, methods, and activities that occur within a mentorship vary, depending on the Mentee's needs and the mentor's expertise. For more information, read the FAQ!
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