By your side: Mentors and Mentees celebrate
Last week mentors and mentees gathered at Birmingham Children’s Hospital for a celebration marking their completion of their mentorship .
By Your Side is the Trust’s mentoring scheme, designed to match people from different areas and with different experiences to share ideas and perspectives, and allow less experienced colleagues to ask questions and get advice on how to progress their career.
By Your Side’s third cohort successfully graduated and were able to reflect on their experiences and what they learnt. Certificates were received under an arch of gold balloons and accompanied by an array of sweet treats.
Chief Executive, Matt Boazman attended the event after mentoring Jas, who was nervous about progressing into a new role.
Matt said: “It is a real privilege to be here and celebrate the fantastic programme. I found it personally extremely rewarding being a mentor and working with the wonderful Jas.
“It is fantastic to hear people’s stories and experiences. It is so good we support this as an organisation.”
The scheme was set up three years ago by Ruth Wall, Head of EDI, to help support staff in taking the next step in their careers and progressing whether that be through an alternative role or through leadership.
Ruth said: “My aim for By Your Side is that no one needs to step aside from nursing to go up the ladders like I did. They can continue to develop in the careers they want as they see fit.
“The key message of By Your Side is the unwritten rules of career progression.”
The programme entails staff, who want to be mentored being paired with someone with more experience enabling staff to network and learn key skills to help them feel comfortable when transitioning to a new role or progressing onto the next step of their career.
The aim of the programme is to address and break down barriers to leadership and progression for all staff. It gives staff a chance to speak to and connect with somebody they wouldn’t usually, so they can feel heard and not alone. Allowing them to have a safe person to ask ‘silly questions’ that they would normally be too embarrassed to ask.
Staff can volunteer to become mentors or mentees and programme lead Darren Lamb is always on hand to help with any support or queries mentors may have when it comes to best supporting their mentees.
The graduation event was also another opportunity for networking as it meant mentees could meet other mentors to continue building those connections beyond the programme.
Darren said “It is really important to celebrate our mentors' and mentees' achievements and say 'thank you'.”