Speak Out April 2019

SPOTLIGHT ON PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT

Q& A Andrew (mentee) What were the top 5 things your mentor did that made a difference? Ashleigh took a genuine interest in my professional development and she looked at my circumstances holistically. Our discussions were not limited to clinical skills, but included things like business administration, ethics, productivity and self care. She was authentic, approachable and generous with her time and helped identify some of my blind spots about how I worked, and let me figure out how to solve the issues myself. She was open, friendly and non-judgemental. This allowed me to reflect honestly and push myself to improve. What did you gain from the mentoring process? I started working for myself as a private practitioner fairly early in my career. I also had a new baby at home as the business was rolling out, so it was a busy time. Ashleigh helped me to develop the skills to manage the competing challenges myself. She didn’t spoon feed me. Instead, she would ask questions that allowed me to reflect on what I was doing and how I could improve. The mentoring experience was extremely rewarding. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking to further develop their skills. Thank you, Ashleigh! Ashleigh (mentor) What motivated you to become a mentor? I commenced my private speech pathology practice as a sole trader in 2015 following 10 years of working within professional teams across many different speech pathology departments and services. I had also taken some time away from practising speech pathology, in which I held a senior management role, where I was responsible for managing staff who were delivering early childhood services to rural remote NSW communities. During this management role, I developed a sound understanding for active reflective and inclusive practices. As my sole practice grew, I found myself reflecting on my need to network and learn from my professional speech pathology peers and colleagues. I had always been aware of the Speech Pathology Australia Mentoring Program, thanks to the regular promotion of the program by Meredith Prain, departing SPA Professional Support Advisor, and had been very fortunate in my career to have a few excellent mentors and clinical supervisors. I had also reflected on the more challenging times I had as a junior speech pathologist, when I felt overburdened with caseload demands, time management, professional development needs, and having a very limited understanding and experience of how to maintain workplace It is with some sadness, that I write the introduction to what will be my final post in Speak Out as Professional Support Advisor. I have thoroughly enjoyed this role as it is extremely rewarding assisting SPA members to find appropriate and adequate professional support and in particular, hearing the positive outcomes of receiving good professional support. Reflections on the mentoring process

Below is an interview with Ashleigh Jenkins (mentor) and Andrew Watt (mentee) which highlights some of the key processes and benefits of mentoring when it’s at its best. Many thanks to Ashleigh and Andrew for sharing their valuable insights. Meredith Prain Professional Support Advisor

relationships. With all these things in mind, I decided to list myself as a mentor, because I knew I needed to be actively networking and learning from other speech pathologists, and because I thought my professional and clinical experience could help and support more junior speech pathologists during the more challenging times in their practice of speech pathology. More specifically, I was motivated to become a mentor for Andrew Watt, because he is a male speech pathologist, and I was interested to discuss and explore his experiences in speech pathology given that our profession is a female dominated industry. What do you think are the five key ingredients to a successful mentoring partnership? The five key ingredients I believe are needed for a successful mentoring partnership are: • Be actively reflective to promote meaningful learning. That is, to be able to identify and verbalise the problem or issue, it’s causes, and develop a solution or way forward. • Be affirming with ethical reasoning rather than critical and judgemental. Our profession requires a lot of critical thinking and analysis, and in my experience critical feedback can often be delivered negatively. • Be generous with time for quality discussion. When an individual is learning how to consolidate their technical knowledge and apply their clinical reasoning, they are also often learning how to articulate these processes and need time to do so. • Be strategic and identify the individual’s communication and learning styles. Delivering information and education in a manner or format which suits the individual will hasten learning outcomes. • Be compassionate and sincere. Junior clinician’s are often in a state of great transition. Apart from their professional development and caseload demands, they may also be challenged by a lot of transition in their personal lives. They may be starting a family, relocating for work, commencing new relationships, purchasing property, all of which add pressure, and can directly impact on clinical practice and workplace performance. What did you gain from the mentoring process? Developing and engaging in mentoring relationships with motivated and recently graduated speech pathologists, like Andrew, ultimately reignites and maintains my passion for delivering quality speech pathology services to the community. I have gained up to date information on new clinical practices, research, technologies, and resources. Being engaged in the

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April 2019 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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