The concept of mentor families builds upon the literature on networked approaches to mentoring, which encompasses multiple mentors, group mentoring arrangements and developmental networks (a small group who a faculty member turns to for mentoring support in their everyday life at work). The concept of a mentor family recognizes that faculty can benefit from psychosocial and career-related guidance and support from multiple people. Mentor families often include the following:
When we use the term mentor family in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, we are referring to a range of arrangements involving three or more people engaged in simultaneous, collaborative learning. The following are some options for mentor families in our department. Additional structures can be created as well.
- Single mentor with multiple mentees and the mentor has an annual meeting with all mentees (known as one-to-many mentoring)
- Peer mentor groups or team science groups (known as peer group mentoring)
- Mentor-mentee pair meets with another mentor-mentee pair
- One mentee meets with two or more mentors together
- Three generation families – senior mentor – mid-career mentor(s) – mentees from both the senior and mid-career mentors (known as many-to-many mentoring)
- Other options TBD