Mentoring applications will be open twice a year and reviewed and matched in May and October following the application deadline Whether you’re interested in becoming a mentor or a mentee, you’ll have the opportunity to complete an application form during these windows. Our Professional Development team will carefully review all applications and strive to connect participants with suitable mentors or mentees based on identified areas of growth and strength. Following the application window, our Professional Development team will manually match mentors and mentees. At this stage, the mentor will be notified and will have the opportunity to review the mentee application and accept or decline the match. There may be occasions when a mentor has to reject a match. This will likely be down to their availability or a conflict of interest. On the rare occasion this may happen, we will simply match you with another available mentor. Once matches are confirmed, you will receive an email introduction to your mentoring partner.

In the first meeting, participants are expected to agree on their mutual expectations for the relationship. Normally, participants will meet monthly, and we would expect the relationship to end after 6 months.

Meetings should take place in a mutually agreeable space. We anticipate that most meetings will take place online via Zoom/Teams etc. However, you may also wish to meet in person if practical.

The role of a mentor can be described as being a ‘critical friend’. By this we mean providing honest and constructive feedback whilst also providing support and encouragement.

A mentor will agree to share with you information about their own career, provide guidance, motivation, emotional support and role modelling. They may help with exploring career opportunities, setting goals, developing contacts and identifying suitable learning resources.

However, the mentor is not there to provide you with all the answers. The mentor is there to support and challenge you on your own development journey.

Each mentor relationship is anticipated to last a maximum of 6 months. At this stage, both parties will need to reflect on and review the relationship.

AHEP mentors are all volunteers and so we may have a limited supply. Wherever possible we will match you with an available mentor, however, if this is not possible we will be in touch with you. We would strive to recruit more mentors from the membership to ensure a suitable match for you.

We encourage both the mentor and the mentee to review the value of the relationship at any point. We would expect this review to take the form a discussion between both parties. We would always expect this to be done in line with AHEP values and professional courtesy. When it is time to end the connection either party can notify the AHEP Professional Development team.

Yes, you can. You should read the mentor FAQs and guidance first, and then you can apply from the webpage.

The AHEP team will be able to support you if you have any questions about your mentoring experience. You can reach us via hello@ahep.ac.uk

Your mentee application form is kept on our system and a confidential record of who has mentored you through your time as an AHEP mentee.

We will provide mentors with two document templates:

– A mentoring agreement template – to be completed following the initial meeting where the objectives for the mentoring relationship are set.

– A meeting summary template – which can be optionally completed following every meeting, summarising what was discussed.