Relationship supervisors

Responsibilities of program co-ordinators, relationship supervisors and trainers... 

Let us now look at the responsibilities associated with the program co-ordinator, the relationship supervisor and the trainer in more detail. 

There are usually two types of trainers within mentoring schemes external facilitators/consultants who train program co-ordinators and relationship supervisors and trainers (internal or external) who are responsible for equipping mentors and mentees with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to make relationships a success. To make things simpler, we will typically use the term trainer to refer to both types, but will make it clear, whenever a further distinction is necessary. 

Having decided on the vacancies that need filling, determine the number of people needed for each role. This should be done in accordance with the number of mentees and mentors you are planning to recruit. Then you can draw up job descriptions and selection criteria for each of the vacancies. With regard to the selection criteria for trainers, relationship supervisors and (if still necessary) the program co-ordinator, please refer back to Founding the implementation team and Table 8.1. 

The scale of the overall scheme (i.e. the numbers of mentors, mentees, line managers and relationship supervisors). 

Mentors and mentees as well as line managers, relationship supervisors and the program co-ordinator must undergo training. Mentors and mentees must attend this prior to being matched. Profiles of mentors and mentees are used to match pairs. Mentees are given several options to choose from and preferences with regards to particular mentors are taken into account. 

In this scheme, mentoring is a specify nature of reiationship, e.g. one-to-one). They are expected to last for specify duration of the relationships) and pairs are meant to meet on a weekly/fort-nightly/ monthly/hi-monthiy) basis. The relationship supervisor (program co-ordinator) will supervise the mentoring relationship. S/he is the first point of contact for mentors and mentees should there be any queries/problems. S/he is also responsible for providing feedback to the program co-ordinator regarding the success of the relationship. 

Within this scheme, the relationship supervisor is obliged to... 

The needs of your trainees (e.g. mentors, mentees and relationship supervisors). 

Relationship supervisors Skills training and briefing on scheme and role... 

If possible, assessing the evaluation data of previous mentoring schemes/mentoring relationships what did participants want more of and less of What specific skill and knowledge gaps did the majority of mentors/mentees/relationship supervisors display ... 

The organization of your program - for example, if the relationship supervisors are part of your implementation team, they will need their briefings to happen much earlier than mentors and mentees do this means that you cannot therefore brief these three groups jointly on the scheme facts. 

Holding joint briefing sessions wifh all fhe parties involved in the scheme also fosters trust in the scheme and provides people with an opportunity to get to know the individuals they will be in close contact with (e.g. the program coordinator and the relationship supervisors). 

All mentors, mentees, relationship supervisors, line managers, senior management/ external clients, and support staff... 

In cases where relationship problems are serious and cannot be resolved between mentor and mentee, you might want to suggest that they should contact the relationship supervisor or program co-ordinator. (For more detail on problems in mentoring relationships, see Chapter 11.)... 

Ensuring that any administration related to the mentoring sessions occurs, for example the filling in of progress reviews (unless, of course, this is the sole responsibility of another person such as the relationship supervisor). 

This involves advising relationship supervisors of their responsibilities and duties. The exact content will once again depend on your definition of this role. In Chapter 8, we described aspects that can be associated with it. These involve ... 

If one of the responsibilities of your relationship supervisors is fo manage problems rafher than referring menfor and mentee to the co-ordinator, they will need training on this subject. 

Whether skills training for relationship supervisors is necessary at all will depend on the nature of the role. Thus, if the relationship supervisor does need to become involved in managing relationship problems, you might want to provide training in the following two skills ... 

Irrespective of whether your program employs relationship supervisors to deal with relationship problems or not, the coordinator will always have the final responsibility for managing difficult situations. Since the same principles apply to the program co-ordinator as to the relationship supervisor regarding this subject, you might want to structure the training in similar ways. 

Promoting the formation of support networks - either where people can physically meet up or virtual ones where members of a particular group (e.g. mentors or relationship supervisors) have their own secure chatroom and noticeboard on the company intranet or on the Internet. 

The aim of this exercise is to enable relationship supervisors and program co-ordinators to practise their coimselling skills in a role-play setting. The approximate duration of this exercise is 30 minutes, with 20 minutes spent on the role-play and 10 minutes spent on feedback. 

Self-report questionnaires containing a mixture of open and forced-choice questions. These could be distributed amongst mentors, mentees, relationship supervisors, line managers and program co-ordinators. In addition, you could also use this method to consult with peers, customers and/or suppliers -i.e. anyone who could provide you with valuable evaluation data. Make sure, however, that you customize the questions to the group of respondents you are addressing. 

Line managers. Relationship supervisors. Program co-ordinator. Program sponsors. 

That said, it is of course necessary also to emphasize that relationships should not be terminated as soon as any problem arises because the likelihood of this happening is quite high. However, the likelihood of this problem being anything serious that could not be resolved between a mentor and their mentee is very small. Hence mentoring pairs should be encouraged to assess their decision to terminate a relationship carefully, and perhaps to seek the counsel of the relationship supervisor/program co-ordinator to subject the problem to a reality check. If a decision to break up has been confirmed,... 

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