Mentoring is a multi-dimensional practice combining career development, psychosocial support, role modelling, and organisational learning.
As Kram (1985, p. 8) asserts, “Mentors provide not only career-related guidance but also psychosocial support that enables the protégé to navigate complex organisational and professional landscapes.” This highlights the dual function of mentoring, integrating skill development with relational and emotional support.
Bozeman and Feeney (2007) emphasise mentoring as the transmission of knowledge, skills, and experience from a more experienced colleague to a less experienced one. Eby et al. (2013) identify mentoring as a growth-oriented relationship encompassing career, psychosocial, and role-modelling functions, which fosters professional identity and ethical practice. Peeples, Vandermaas-Peeler, and Moore (2024) further emphasise mentoring as both a process and a set of relationships that facilitates learning, professional integration, and identity formation.
Garvey, Stokes, and Megginson (2017, p. 45) note, “Effective mentoring is a dynamic, context-sensitive process that combines guidance, reflective dialogue, and coaching techniques to enhance both individual and organisational performance.”
This highlights the importance of tailoring mentoring to the specific context of care education, ensuring it is both developmental and organisationally beneficial.
In my organisation , mentoring encompasses structured guidance for apprentices, new recruits, and less experienced staff, embedding reflective dialogue, experiential learning, and regulatory compliance within workplace learning (Klinge, 2015).
More recent literature highlights a decisive shift from hierarchical transmission models towards collaborative and dialogic professional learning (Clutterbuck, 2014; Garvey et al., 2017). Within this paradigm, mentoring supports reflective dialogue, relational trust, ethical reasoning, and practitioner autonomy (Kemmis et al., 2019; Lofthouse, 2019). Mentors increasingly demonstrate characteristics aligned with transformational leadership—motivating, inspiring, and intellectually stimulating mentees while modelling professional standards (Bass & Riggio, 2006).