Tell me about your university's student/peer mentor program - I want to start one

[secondversenurse]

Hello Fellow Nursing Students and Nurses,

To say my first semester as a nursing student was a bit rough is an understatement. It came as a huge surprise being that I was going into it with straight A's. While I had extremely supportive professors, I could have absolutely used advice from upperclassmen. I would like to establish a student mentor program for the incoming class. I would literally pull students I didn't know aside, and ask them about Patho or Clinicals. I found their advice to be gold.

If you have an established student mentor program at your university can you please tell me how it is set up? Is it mandatory? I want it to be randomly assigned, and I would love a letter to be present at orientation from their assigned mentor. This letter would ideally have encouraging words, but mostly suggestions for a successful semester.

Thanks in advance,

: )

[jess.mont, ADN, RN]

We have a program sort of like this, but in a group, not individually. A mentor comes into our first eight-week skills lab during our first semester and gives us helpful tips and takes questions. Our instructors recommend certain students to be mentors - I was asked to do it next semester - and then we're assigned to a lab. We're encouraged to interact as peers to offer advice, support, and guidance, but not to tutor. There are tutors for that! We have a brief training session, and then we go into each lab two times during the eight weeks for about 45 min. One instructor manages the program to keep track of who's where, etc.

You could start by writing up a proposal and then talking to your dept. head or an instructor you have a relationship with and go from there. Good luck.

[ItsThatJenGirl, CNA]

My school has this. You generally meet your peer mentor the day of orientation - they are with you throughout the process. They take you on a tour of the campus and answer any of your orientation classes. There is one peer mentor for each clinical group so 8-12 students. They are supposed to help you throughout the semester - with notes, studying tips, emotional support, etc. Mine sucked, but other mentors were amazing.

Peer mentors are chosen through an application/interview process.

If you have any other questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

[LiveOnBright]

We have a mentor/mentee program that is run by the students. Its completely voluntary. First year students opt in and fill out a survey to be paired with an upperclass student. The 2nd years complete a similar process. There is a committee of 3-4 students that pair the 1st and 2nd years and arrange events. We have an event every semester. Then its mostly a one on one relationship and each relationship is unique. Some people meet up and study together, others email occasionally, others become best friends. Its been a great success for us and I'm really happy being apart of the program.

[Cindyel, ASN, RN]

I found our peer mentor program invaluable my first year. My school has a panel of 2nd year students come in during orientation to talk to the incoming students. Then you can sign up if you would like to have a peer mentor assigned to you. The program is voluntary on both sides. You do not have to be a mentor or have a mentor. The amount of students per mentor varies depending on how many 2year students volunteer to be a mentor, My mentor had 3 students and my first contact with her was via a welcome email. It was such a relief to know I had a "phone a friend" there to ask questions to.

The program had varying amounts of success. I had a fantastatic mentor. She even offered to mentor me through my last year, even though she just graduated. I had several friends whose mentors ghosted them afrer initial contact and never would answer their emails. I would just share any info I got from mine with them so we all still benefitted from the program in the end.