Our mentoring programme
Our new mentoring programme is focused on developing your practical skills and building your confidence as an activist or workplace representative.
Its purpose is to complement the core training programmes offered by Skills Academy by providing much needed “on the ground” support for you, when undertaking a new union role.
As an essential element of our training and education programme, we will match experienced representatives as mentors with mentees, who have recently undertaken a new representative role within Fórsa. This can be either at workplace, Branch, Divisional, or National Executive level.
Our trained mentors are experienced workplace representatives with expertise in clearly defined areas and the skills to provide guidance and support to the mentee.
Our programme will establish and maintain a panel of mentors and mentees through an online application process (see the link at the end of this page). All mentors and mentees selected for this programme will undertake a short training workshop before the mentoring commences.
The programme is semi-structured in nature, to provide some guidance and co-ordination from Skills Academy, whilst ensuring there is a degree of freedom for each team to set their own arrangements as appropriate.
Those seeking to apply to participate in this programme must ensure they can provide the necessary commitment of one-hour of mentoring (in-person, online etc) per month over a six-month period (September 2024 to March 2025).
Why participate?
There are many advantages for mentors and mentees in participating.
For mentors: Engaging in our programme provides opportunities to pass on valuable knowledge and expertise, build leadership skills, improve communications skills, learn from the different perspectives of our newest reps, and gain a sense of achievement as mentees progress.
For mentees: Engaging in our programme provides access to a source of new ideas, perspectives, and experiences, offers a “sounding board” for feedback on your own ideas, creates a new network of expertise, and identifies how to further develop your own knowledge, skills, and experience.
To apply, please fully complete the application form.