Planning and Managing a Mentoring Programme in Sport 4


overall programme – the ‘who’ aspect. This decision is often described as ‘getting the right people on the bus’, which is normally made after the decision about ‘where the bus is going’ – the outcome or ‘what’ of the programme, as previously described.


In addition to identifying the right mentors, it is crucial that the mentor’s specific role is thought about, agreed and understood by everyone involved in the programme. Think of a mentor as:


“


Getting the right people on the bus is normally after the decision about where the bus is going.


Someone who facilitates an individual coach’s


development by encouraging self-reflection and critical analysis.


You will be better placed to differentiate the role of a mentor from that of, for example, a technical adviser. If your organisation has decided that the major issue for coaches is their lack of


knowledge or skills, then providing coaches with suitable technical advisers may be sufficient to address your ‘development gap’. Indeed on reviewing the pilot programme, one of the sports identified a valuable role for technical advisers


within their coach development system. Expectations of mentoring and its purpose differ from the technical advice role required by less experienced coaches to the ‘critical friend’ and ‘supporter’ required by more experienced coaches.


Selecting the right people


In any formal mentoring programme, the three key roles are: • coach • mentor • programme manager.


For the pilot project, there was an independent consultant appointed to help initiate, implement and review the programme. Your organisation may decide that such a role would be useful or that your identified programme manager could readily fulfil this function. Each organisation will make decisions about how precisely to set up and run a mentoring programme based on its own infrastructure and resources available.


In terms of the three central roles, each will now be set out in greater detail of what the role entails and the key attributes that each role requires in order for the programme to be optimally effective.


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