What Are the Benefits of Becoming a Mentoring Organization?

Most turnover among direct-care workers occurs during the first few months of employment. Providing new workers with additional support, through a peer mentor program, can help lower their stress, develop their confidence, and equip them with the skills they need to build positive relationships with elders, their families, and other staff.

At the same time, experienced direct-care staff who are promoted to become mentors have the opportunity to lead, grow professionally, and advance their careers. It is this dynamic that makes peer mentoring an effective strategy individualized, relationship-centered caregiving and reduce staff turnover.

Implementing a PHI Peer Mentor program can help your organization to:

• Strengthen communication and caregiving skills of new direct-care workers through on-the-job peer support.
• Improve the quality of care by reinforcing a culture of communication, respect, and problem solving.
• Increase retention of new staff by developing in-house resources to help them feel more secure and less isolated.
• Improve morale by showing experienced direct-care staff that their knowledge of elders’ needs and new worker challenges make them valued members of the caregiving team.

PHI Peer Mentor Services

PHI offers a full range of program development and training services related to peer mentoring. Please speak with a PHI consultant about what would be right for you.

Program Design

Implementing and sustaining an effective mentor program involves much more than identifying and training mentors. That’s why PHI offers a full package of consulting services that support the design, implementation, and evaluation of a peer mentor program specifically tailored to your organization’s needs. We work with you to:

• Build organizational support for your program.
• Define the mentoring role and responsibilities.
• Develop a process for recruitment and selection of mentors.
• Implement your training program.
• Launch the mentoring program.
• Evaluate and improve the program to ensure overall sustainablity.

Mentor Training

PHI’s peer mentor training equips experienced direct-care workers with the skills they need to help new employees become comfortable with their job responsibilities, establish respectful relationships with those they care for, and adapt to the culture of your workplace.

Through a two-day skills-based training, followed by two additional “booster sessions,” mentors become more sensitive to the experience of new employees and learn to:

• Use effective communication skills such as active listening and paraphrasing to support mentees.
• Engage in collaborative problem solving with their mentees.
• Model communication and relationship-centered caregiving skills for mentees.
• Provide constructive feedback to mentees learning the job.
• Provide current and accurate information about job responsibilities and workplace issues.

Train-the-Trainer

To ensure sustainability of your program, PHI trains your staff developers to deliver the PHI mentor training program. Your trainers will learn to teach the PHI Peer Mentor curriculum through a three-part process: participating in a day-long seminar focused on adult learner-centered teaching; observing the two-day mentor training; and attending a follow-up session with PHI’s training staff to discuss the goals and objectives of the training any concerns regarding the delivery of the training.