Developing a Clinical Mentoring Plan for Mental Health Nurses

This article discusses the importance of clinical mentoring for mental health nurses and how to develop a plan to improve their interpersonal skills. It includes a review of the one-on-one mentoring model, the mentee's strengths and weaknesses, and specific goals and resources required for the mentoring process.

Running head: CLINICAL MENTORING PLAN
CLINICAL MENTORING PLAN
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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CLINICAL MENTORING PLAN
Introduction: (200)
Nursing mentorship can be explained as the development of a relationship where an
experienced nurse acts as the guide, role model as well as expert for a new or a less-experienced
nurse. Studies have found that irrespective of an individual being a new graduate nurse from
BSN program or a seasoned pro, a mentoring relationship can contribute to development of new
skills and advancing of the career (Welch, 2017). Hafsteinsdóttir et al. (2017) has defined
mentoring as the reciprocal as well as collaborative learning relationship taking place sometimes
between two or among many individuals however focusing on individual as well as mutual goals
along with shared accountability for the outcomes and the success of the relationships.
Mentoring mental health patients indeed has evidences in guiding new novice nurses in their
professional, interpersonal and personal growth thereby helping I better service delivery and
higher levels of patient satisfaction (Weese et al., 2015). Mentoring in mental healthcare studies
is found to be especially helpful to orient new mental health nurses in the healthcare world,
helping to improve their self-confidence and also helping mentees to understand moral as well as
ethical issues and helping in development of real-world skills that are not covered in the nursing
universities (Hulton et al., 2016). Not only so, mentoring also helps experienced nurses for
moving into the leadership positions and thereby shifting their focus of their careers. This
assignment will mainly show how clinical mentoring plan needs to be developed after
identifying the needs of the mentees and how it would help the mentee to develop skills and
knowledge to ensure quality services for the patients.

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Review and summary:
One of the most traditional yet the most effective mentoring model that would be used for
the development of the clinical mentoring plan is the one-on-one mentoring. In this model, one
mentor is matched with that of another mentee where a trained manager may or may not monitor
the progress of the match over the course of 9-12 months. Studies opine that in most cases, the
matches are deliberate and the mentoring program manager mainly pairs two people together
based on particular types of certain criteria (Williams et al., 2018). These are seen to include the
attributes like experiences. Skill sets as well as personalities, different goals and also varieties of
the other factors. Brody et al. (2016) has talked about the positive outcomes that remain
associated with the application of the mentoring model. Many of the interviewee participants
who were engaged in open-ended questioning had stated that since it is the
“familiar model”, people tend to feel comfortable with this model. Many of the studies have also
revealed that this model allows for and even encourages both the mentor as well as the mentee in
developing a strong personal relationship that increases the transparency in the mentoring session
results in better outputs. Levine et al. (2017) is of the opinion that his mentoring model is useful
for organizations and industries who want to target a specific group of people for the
development as well as the retention purposes. Zhang et al. (2016) has stated that once a mentor
as well as the mentee are matched and complete their initial meetings, their relationships are
believed to flourish. The pair is seen to pan the future activities and is seen to be meeting
independently. In this form, the mentors are seen to provide individualistic approach and they are
able to focus their time and concentration to one mentee at a time thereby helping in better
development of the mentee in all aspects. The mentor might be seen to accompany or be present

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with the mentees in most of the time of the day providing hands-on experiencing attending to the
individual needs of the mentees which might not be possible in group mentoring style.
The clinical mentoring plan that would be developed in ways by which the mentor would
be able to interact with the mentee at a personal level in order to understand the different
interpersonal attributes that are present in the mentee or need to be developed in her. studies are
of the opinion that mental health nurses are different from other healthcare nurses is that they
need to be more focused for the development of therapeutic relationship with patients so that
mental health patients participate in their care (Grassley & Lambe, 2015). Other nursing fields
have their patients in better condition of mental and emotional health of patients and tackling
such patients are not as critical as that in mental health patients. Hence, the mentors should be
mentoring mental-health novice nurses to develop specific skills that need to be required
exceptionally in the profession of mental health nursing. Hence the clinical mentoring plan that
would be developed should mainly be focusing on identifying the interpersonal skills required
for treating mental health patients by the novice nurses (Jeffers & Mariani, 2017). The clinical
mentoring plan would mainly be including informal interview sessions with the mentee in order
to identify the skills that are lacking in the mentee and these which need to be developed to help
her become better nursing professionals. Following the identification of the skills that are
lacking, objectives would be set through which the nurse would be exposed in situations where
she would be shown how to develop the skills through real-life experiences and hand-on
experiences by the mentor (Harris et al., 2016). The mentor will be handling the situation so that
the mentee might learn by observational learning. Following this, the mentee would be exposed
to such situations again where the mentor would check on the performance and provide
feedbacks to the mentee. Reflective experiences would be providing to mentee to help her reflect

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on her development and accordingly plan her further activities. The clinical mentoring plan
would be developed in ways by which the above aspect can be met.
Summary of the mentee:
The mentee named Selena Decker is a 25 year old woman who had completed her
nursing school degree in mental health nursing and had been provided the position of a student
registered nurse in the organization. Her performance and her services would be assessed after
six to eight months before she would be promoted to the position of registered nurse from
student registered nurse. It was seen that the nurse had achieved greater marks in her academics
and had good theoretical knowledge; however, she lacked the ability of applying the correct
theories in the real-life scenarios. Some other attributes that were also noticed was her excessive
level of introvert behavior, which prevented her from disclosing herself to the mentee as well as
to the patients. As a result the patients were not been able to connect with her on an emotional
level. The present days in the mental health ward are found to be excessively busy both in the
outpatient and the inpatient departments and she was found to be unable to manage the stress and
breaking down again and again. She lacked patience and this reflected in her treatment
approaches with the patients. Therefore, most of the weakness that was found among the mentee
was mainly in her inter-personal skills. It therefore became important for the mentor to learn
about the specific skills that were urgent for the mentee to develop in order to ensure quality
patient care and greater level of patient satisfaction. The patient was also seen to have poor
emotional intelligence that were noticed by observing her actions and performance in severe
complex as well as strenuous situations. One of the incidents at the inpatient unit made her
breakdown into tears when the patient was narrating her life story to her. This implied that she
was emotionally week and had poor self-regulation skills. Another very important arena which

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the mentor had observed and had even been reported to by other senior nurses is the ethical
dilemma she faces. She often gets confused in such situations when ethical dilemmas arise. She
becomes confused and starts becoming restless without understanding how to approach the
situations. These are some of the attributes that are extremely important for the mental health
nurses to learn as they would need these skills when communicating with mental health patients
specially as they remain emotionally and mentally unstable and suffer from varieties of
insecurities and poorly coped management skills.
Overview of the Mentor / Mentee base line: (500)
Mentor goals outlined  Engage the mentee in more interaction
with the patient to identify the lack of
the communication attributes and
accordingly develop strategies for
enhancing the identified
communication skill lacking in the
professionals
 Observe the mentee while interviewing
the patients and understanding their life
history and struggles they are facing in
their lives to understand the capability
of the mentee in regulating her
emotions; followed by this, the mentee
would be developing interventions
helping the mentee to develop better

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self-regulation skills
 Expose the nurses in situations where
she might have to face ethical dilemmas
and accordingly help her to learn
critical decision-making skills so that
she can overcome confusions and
understand the priorities.
Anticipated mentee goals  The mentee should learn to reflect on
each and every of the negative and
positive experiences she has gained to
identify her weakness and strengths
 The mentee needs to develop both of
her verbal and non-verbal
communication skill so as to develop
therapeutic relationship with the patient
 The mentee needs to overcome he
introvert attributes and be more vocal
about her feelings, issues she face,
strategies she need to proposes to
healthcare teams, providing suggestions
to mentors, interact with patients and
others (Walker & Verklan, 2016).
Overcoming introvert behaviors and

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striking a right balance between being
introvert and extrovert is considered to
be one of the factor for professional and
personal success
 The mentee would need to regulate her
emotions as it is an important attribute
of nursing and should therefore follow
the strategies discussed by the mentor
to ways of overcoming emotional
breakouts
 The mentee needs to develop decision
making and critical thinking skills to
solve ethical dilemmas and to be out
from ethical and legal concerns.
Assumed mentee knowledge The mentee is found to be well aware of the
different nursing theories along with the knowledge
on the importance of application of the theories.
She is already having a detailed knowledge about
the pathophysiology about different mental health
disorders and are found to be an expert in the
classification and identifying each of the mental
health issues as amerced by DSM 5. She is also
well aware about the clinical as well as non-
pharmacological approaches for each of the

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disorders and is seen to be applying or suggest
them to the patient. She is also quite efficient in the
evidence based searches and are also found to be
quite enthusiastic about understanding the
technological advancements in the healthcare
fields. She has the skills of searching databases and
collecting evidence based articles that help her to
come up with newer and efficient ways of treating
mental health patients.
Relevant contextual factors identified It has been found that lack of exposure of the
mentee to the real-life situations during the
academic years might have been the greatest cause
of lack of interpersonal skills important for
managing mental health patients. The education
that had been provided by the university had been
already grasped well by the student as she is a
dedicating individual and have real knack towards
mental health nursing. Sudden exposure to the busy
shifts in the working environment of the healthcare
organizations might have made her nervous where
she is not getting the scope of gradually adapting to
the environment (Dobrowolska et al., 2016). With
the perspective of time and experiences, the issues
are believed to get resolved.
Potential difficulties to the mentoring process  The busy shift might be one of the

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barriers that might affect the mentoring
process. Often there might be
requirement where the mentor would
have to be present in complex care
needs and the mentee would have to
handle patients alone. Such strenuous
situations because of shortage of
nurses. in such situations, it would not
be possible for the mentor to provide
hand-on experiences which are
important in one-on-one mentoring
process (Walker et al., 2016)
 The mentee is seen to be introvert and
may not openly discuss the issues she is
facing in the mentoring process. She
may not reveal any aspects that would
have hurt her or made her feel stressed
in the mentoring process. This might
affect the transparency in the mentor-
mentee relationship which might act as
the barrier in the mentoring process
resulting in delay of the achieving the
goals set for the process (Lin et al.,

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2018).
Specific resources that are required  Notebook or pads for jotting down the
important strengths and weakness
observed in the mentees
 Reflective journal to be maintained by
the mentee
 Evidence based approach from the
databases helping both mentee and
mentor
 Soft copies and hard copies of the
records of development of the mentees
each day.
Three main objectives for the mentoring sessions:
One of the learning objectives would be to develop the verbal and the non-verbal communication
skills. It has been seen that the mentee is failing miserably in developing therapeutic relationship
with mental health patients. Studies opine that therapeutic relationship development enables
patients to become comfortable and open up about themselves that help in developing person-
centered nursing action interventions to help the patients (Cooley et al., 2016). Hence, to develop
therapeutic relationships, mental health nurses need to enhance their communication skills
 Another of the learning objective is to develop self-regulation skills as well as emotional
intelligence in managing different patients. It has been found that mental health patients

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often have sad histories and life events which make them emotional, stressed and upset.
Such situations require nurses to be emotionally stable in order to handle and care for the
patient successfully. Emotional stability and self-regulation of nurses are extremely
important and need to be achieved (Raymond et al., 2017)
 The mentee should be developing ethical decisions making skills and critical thinking
skills to manage stressful ethical and complex situations successfully. A number of
incidences in the mental health ward had been identified which had showed that mentee
is not able to take proper ethical decisions by overcoming ethical dilemmas. Hence, these
need to be developed (Ross et al., 2015).
1 to 3 questions that are applied:
Question that is asked Level of the question Rationale Object associated
What are the specific
interpersonal skills that
you believe to be
missing from the care
services that you
provide
This can be considered
to be of the interpretive
level. This would help
the mentor to know
whether she is aware
about the weakness she
had while trying to
It has been found that
nurses need to identify
their own weaknesses in
order to feel the
importance of
developing the
knowledge. A nurse
The main objective
would be to help the
mentee understand the
important interpersonal
communication skills
that she lacks and to
help the mentee with the

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develop interpersonal
relationship with
patients to provide
therapeutic care to them
who is not aware about
his own negative
aspects would never feel
the urg or motivate to
develop. Hence, the
mentor should try to
understand whether the
mentee is aware about
her lacking of the
interpersonal skills
following which the
mentor should e
discussing the matters in
details
strategies by which she
can develop the
communication skills
with the patients to
develop therapeutic
relationship with them.
How do you feel when
patients emotionally
break down in front of
you?
This question belongs to
the reflective levels.
These question would
enable the nurse to
reflect on her own
feelings ensuring the
strenuous times of
patients emotionally
breaking down and help
her to realize whether
she is undertaking the
correct approach or that
Often in many situations
it can be seen that
novice nurses are not
aware of their own
emotions and often
these emotions become
a barrier in their care
services preventing
them to undertake a
professional approach to
the patients. This
emotional instability
This is associated with
the objective where the
mentor would be
helping the nurse to
learn self-regulation
skills and become an
emotionally intelligent
mental health
professional in the
healthcare ward.

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she needs to develop the
self-regulation skills
might mask their
thinking capability
making them undertake
improper approaches to
care. Hence, it is the
duty of the mentor to
help the mentee reflect
her on self-regulation
skills to provide care to
mental health patients
successfully.
What are your plans and
how are you going to
overcome the ethical
dilemmas that you face
in complex situations
that require you to make
ethical decision-
making?
These can be
considered to be the
decision level question
as with the help of this
question, the mentor can
encourage the mentee to
elicit resolution as well
as come out with new
directions and actions
that the mentee can feel
to be helpful.
Often attending mental
health patients tend to
make the professionals
engage in many ethical
dilemmas where they
need to critically
analyze the cost-benefit
analysis of the situation
and maintain the
bioethical principles to
come out with solutions
that would prove to be
beneficial for the life
and quality of living of
the patients. hence,
This is associated with
the objective of
developing skills and
knowledge among the
patients to develop their
ethical decision-making
skills to prevent her
from legal and ethical
obligations in complex
situations.

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nurses need to develop
ethical decision making
skills and critical
thinking skills.
Anticipated benefits for the mentee:
Interpersonal communication skills help nurses to develop therapeutic relationships with
patients. In the mental health nursing, mental health patients most of the time are seen to feel low
on self-esteem and low on self-confidence. This might be attributed to the stigmatization as well
as discrimination that they face at the hands of the society. Often they are seen to exclude
themselves from the society (Foster et al., 2015). They tend to miss schools, universities and
even offices that hamper their productivity, substance abuse disorders, financial insecurities and
poor physical health also remain associated with metal health disorder that completely degrade
the quality of lives of the patients.. Such patients often tend do not reveal information about
themselves with the fear of being judged. They also feel uncomfortable about their personal
issues with nurses who are stranger to them. They also remain stressed and anxious about the
foreign environment of the hospitals (Cullen et al., 2017). Hence, developing communication
skills like empathy, compassion, active listening skills, eye contacts, proper body language,
touch, gestures are important to develop therapeutic relationship with patients. Hence, nurses
need to develop such effective communication skills to help develop emotional bonds with
patients, increase their self-coping abilities and make them feel empowered. Nurses also need to
develop self-regulation skills so that she does not break-out in front of the patients as this might
disrupt their thinking and reasoning capability and thereby resulting in poor health services and

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improper management of the patient (Leggat et al., 2015). Hence, development of self regulation
skill is important. Ethical decision making would help the nurses to overcome ethical dilemmas
that enable patients to be satisfied and prevent them from getting engaged to ethical and legal
complications.
Conclusion:
Mentors can helps in identifying the strengths and weakness of the mentees and thereby
guide them by developing clinical mentoring plan through which different weaknesses can be
worked upon by the nurses. For this reason, the clinical mentoring plan had been developed to
help the nursing mentee develop communication skills, emotional regulation and ethical decision
making skills-all of which are important for best quality mental health care.
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