Mentoring offers CMs professional support
Mentoring offers CMs professional support
Mentors offer continued education and support
At the Summit on Volunteerism in Philadelphia this April, President Clinton urged Americans to volunteer their time to mentor troubled children. But one nursing professor says mentoring isn’t just for kids. It also may offer an excellent tool for developing skilled, competent case managers.
Case management isn’t taught at the undergraduate level. Most case managers enter the industry with little or no preparation for this demanding career. "Professions, like case management, are changing so rapidly in health care that education received in school is not enough to prepare you with the skills necessary for success," says Marilyn A. Sullivan, RN, MS, assistant professor and coordinator of community health nursing at William Carey College In New Orleans.
Mentoring may offer new case managers a life jacket to help keep them afloat as they launch their careers, Sullivan says. "A mentor is a person you can bounce ideas off," she says. "A mentor can help a mentee [newcomer] understand what is expected by an organization, or a profession, and guide the mentee to develop the skills and education needed to succeed in a chosen field."
Developing a relationship
Many mentoring relationships are just "stumbled into," notes Sullivan, who is developing a doctoral dissertation on mentoring relationships in nursing education. However, whether fostered formally or casually, she says, a mentoring relationship must have certain characteristics to succeed. Those include:
• The new case manager and the experienced case manager, or mentor, must agree to the mentoring relationship.
• The new case manager and the mentor should agree on the goals of the relationship.
• The new case manager and the mentor should share common values.
• The new case manager and the mentor should set aside time to work together.
• The new case manager should believe that the mentor has a wealth of knowledge to share.
• The new case manager and the mentor should have easy access to each other.
"The two individuals don’t have to be located in the same building or even the same city," Sullivan explains. "But they must have easy access to each other by phone, or fax, or e-mail. If the two individuals are never able to reach each other due to scheduling conflicts or other accessibility issues, the relationship won’t work."
As the mentoring relationship develops, the new case manager gains confidence and skill, and a subtle shift occurs in which the relationship becomes more reciprocal, Sullivan says. "The new case manager begins to assist the mentor in some situations and becomes the giver as well as receiver of advice," she notes, adding she has been on both the giving and receiving end of mentoring relationships.
Sullivan has observed several other benefits to the mentor, including these:
• Mentor develops feelings of self-esteem and well-being from helping another professional advance his or her career.
• Mentor acquires greater degree of visibility as the new case manager discusses the mentor’s role in his or her development with others in the organization or profession.
• Mentor focuses and enhances his or her own skills or knowledge base.
"There are many times the mentee asks the mentor a question on an issue which the mentor has never given much formal consideration," says Sullivan. "The mentee forces the mentor to develop more insight into the issue being discussed. The mentor may never have given this issue serious consideration if the mentee had not asked for help."
However, it’s essential that the new case manager and the mentor maintain their individuality, she cautions. "The mentor should not dominate the relationship. A mentor who is too domineering can arrest the development of the [new case manager]. You don’t want to end up with a duplicate of the mentor. The idea is to help mentees develop themselves."
Establishing a mentoring program is an excellent way for larger case management organizations to break-in new case managers, Sullivan says. "You wouldn’t want to give a new case manager a full caseload the first week on the job. Having a mentor watch over a new case manager’s progress should help the case manager learn the necessary skills without becoming overwhelmed."
The director of case management for a large self-insured corporation agrees. "We have occupational health nurses on site at our larger properties and we’re asking them to do case management," says Rachel Ebert, MS, FNPC, RN, COHN-S, director of occupational services for Marriott International in Washington, DC.
"A good occupational health nurse does case management in the sense that they follow any worker taking time off the job due to illness or injury. But our nurses do support each other. They do train and mentor each other and offer each other professional guidance when needed," she says. (For further discussion of how Ebert manages a nationwide case management staff, see story, p. 104.)
To help foster the mentoring relationship, Sullivan suggests that case management supervisors take the following steps:
• Set aside time during the workday for the new case manager and the mentor to meet.
• Appoint a staff member to serve as mentoring program coordinator. This person should help pair new case managers and mentors. The program coordinator also should contact the mentor and the new case manager every few months to monitor the relationship’s progress.
• Conduct inservices to train experienced case managers to become mentors.
• Encourage experienced case managers to be mentors.
"Many case managers may not realize the importance of sharing their expertise with others," Sullivan says. "If a supervisor encourages mentoring relationships, they are much more likely to occur."
Most mentoring relationships are not formed from planned mentoring programs. New case managers may find mentors through their local or regional professional organizations, Sullivan says.
Suggested reading
1. Cooper MD. Mentorship: The key to the future of professionalism in nursing. J Perinatl Nurs 1990; 4:71-77.
2. Noe RA. An investigation of the determinants of successful assigned mentoring relationships. Personnel Psychol 1988; 41:457-479.
3. Sullivan MA. Mentoring guidelines. Home Health Focus 1997; 3:68.
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