The Role of Mentoring Relationships across the Sensory Integration Practitioner Training Pathway
By Sensory Integration Education, 1 May 2021
Cathy Maguire is the Director of Memberships Services for SIE and the lead e-mentor for the Sensory Integration Practitioner Training Pathway. Her clinical background is as a physiotherapist, specialising in paediatric complex needs and learning disabilities. She is an advanced sensory integration practitioner and has an MSc in Clinical Leadership for Allied Health Professionals.
Mentoring is a relationship between two (or more people) with the end-goal of positive individual and professional growth for both parties. Mentors are often, but not always, experienced individuals who share, knowledge, experience and advice with a less experienced person, the “mentee”. Mentoring is a partnership based on mutual trust and respect and aims to be both supportive, nurturing and beneficial to both (Chong et al., 2020 and Kowalaski, 2019). It is a key component of the Sensory Integration (SI) Practitioner Training Pathway, with a range of different mentoring relationships fostered across the modules. These include the academic e-mentor-student relationship, the clinical mentor-student relationship and the student-student relationship too (see figure 1 below).
Figure 1 – Schematic Representation of the importance of Mentoring in the SI Practitioner/Advanced Practitioner Training Pathway. SHU = Sheffield Hallam University. SIE= Sensory Integration Education
E-Mentoring
Electronic mentoring (e-mentoring) can be described as a means of providing a guided mentoring relationship using online software processes. When delivered asynchronously, it allows participants to communicate at their own convenience and beyond time zones, eliminating the need for them to be in the same physical location at the same time (Neely, Cotton and Neely 2017, Haran and Jeyaraj, 2019).
All students undertaking SI practitioner training with Sensory Integration Education (SIE) are allocated a named academic e-mentor at the start of each new module and assigned to small closed, asynchronous, online forum groups for regular, shared learning opportunities, guidance and support. These are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, enabling students from across the globe to connect and learn together. The SIE academic e-mentor team is made up of experienced occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. All are advanced SI practitioners and have completed a comprehensive programme of external bespoke e-mentor training. Each team member is strongly committed both to their own academic, clinical and personal development and also the development of others. With access to the latest research evidence base and publications via the Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) Library Resources they recognise the importance of keeping their own knowledge and understanding up to date and encouraging the students they support to do so also. This is in line with Health Education England’s (HEE) Advanced Practice Framework (see figure 2 below):
Figure 2 – Schematic Representation of the Four Pillars of Practice from the HEE Advanced Practice Framework
Clinical Mentoring
Clinical mentoring also plays a crucial role in the development of SI skills at both practitioner and advanced practitioner level. It is essential for students to develop not only sound theoretical SI competency as they progress through the online programme but strong clinical skills too, that are relevant for the settings they are working in and suitable for the client groups they support. SI therapy is a complex intervention and as we are reminded by Bundy and Hacker in Chapter 12, p.286 of the recently published SI Theory and Practice Book (Bundy and Lane, 2020) “very rarely does any therapy session follow the high, hard ground (i.e., rules of theory). In fact, fully half of the Fidelity Measure (Parham et al, 2011), which operationally defines sensory integration therapy, reflects art”. A key part of the clinical mentor role therefore is to support the student to develop competency in applying theory to practice across the SI treatment cycle and encourage them to reflect on and hone the skills required to become an artful practitioner. All SIE-approved Clinical Mentors have strong clinical expertise and experience in the field of Ayres Sensory Integration and are trained to advanced SI practitioner level (or equivalent if not trained through SIE).
Student-Student Mentoring
The third mentoring relationship we place great value on here at SIE is the student-to-student relationship, often referred to as peer support. According to Emmeline et al (2016) this is “important to students’ social and academic integration and achievement”. It occurs whenever a learner uses their own experiences to assist another student’s personal and professional development and in the context of the SIE training pathway this may include articulating their own knowledge and understanding, sharing their own clinical expertise, working alongside others to learn new skills or advance existing ones and also offering critical friendship. As with all teaching methods, online learning has both positives and negatives and some students can feel quite isolated when studying remotely and without the physical company of others around them. Meeting and working with fellow peers via the online forums is a great way of connecting with other learners across the world and forming valuable professional support networks that often last beyond the end of the training programme.
Summary
Together these three distinctly different but equally important mentoring relationships enhance the student experience and extend the learner’s ability to think critically, construct knowledge confidently and develop safe and effective clinical skills. As Benjamin Franklin is commonly reported to have said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn”. The end-goal of mentoring in the SIE training pathway is to help students gain confidence, take control of their own knowledge and understanding, develop sound clinical expertise and feel they are part of a strong and supportive community of SI practice. Academic e-mentors, clinical mentors and students all have important roles to play in achieving this.
References
Bundy, A.C, & Hacker, C. (2020). The Art of Therapy. In Bundy, A.C and Lane, S. J (Ed). Sensory Integration Theory and Practice (pp. 286-299). Philadelphia. F.A. Davis.
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/shu/detail.action?docID=5985005
Chong, J.Y., Ching, A.H., Renganathan, Y., Lim WQ., Toh, YP., Mason, S., & Krishna, LKR. (2020). Enhancing mentoring experiences through e-mentoring: a systematic scoping review of e-mentoring programs between 2000 and 2017. Adv in Health Sci Educ 25, 195–226.
https://search-proquest-com.hallam.idm.oclc.org/docview/2354614600?accountid=13827&pq-origsite=primo
Emmeline, B., Struyven, K., Meurs, P., Abelshausen B., Vanwing T., Engels N and Lombaerts K. (2016). The value of peer-learning for First-Year Postgraduate University Students” Social and Academic Integration. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences 228, 299-304.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81944377.pdf
Neely, A.R., Cotton, J., & Neely, A.D. (2017). E-Mentoring: A Model and Review of the Literature. AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, 9 (3), 220-242. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/thci/vol9/iss3/3/?utm_source=aisel.aisnet.org%2Fthci%2Fvol9%2Fiss3%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Haran, V.V., & Jeyaraj, A. (2019). Organisational E-Mentoring and Learning: An exploratory Study. Information Resources Management Journal (IRMJ), 32 (1), 58-72.
https://www-igi-global-com.hallam.idm.oclc.org/gateway/article/216442
Health Education England. (2017). Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England.
Kowalski, K. (2019). Mentoring. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 50(12), 540-541.
https://search-proquest-com.hallam.idm.oclc.org/docview/2318821515?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=13827
