Mentoring

Mentoring is a key element of career development. Established in 2016, the ABRF Mentoring Program has been a primary focus of the Career Development Committee. The goals of this program are several-fold:

  • To provide career and professional development for ABRF members
  • To make the program flexible enough that any mentee can establish their own objectives and work with a suitable mentor to meet those objectives
  • To emphasize the benefits and challenges of diversity, inclusivity and culture within mentoring relationships

Between 2017-2019, 45 Mentor-Mentee pairs were matched. In 2019, to assess program strengths and weaknesses a comprehensive survey of all participants was conducted. Based on the feedback collected from past ‘alumni’ of the program through this survey, the program has been revamped in 2020, with the objectives of 1) providing better mentor/mentee pairing, and 2) stimulating more engagement between the pair through a better platform.

The new platform is sfgMentorNet. Working with the sfgMentorNet team, the CDC has customized this platform to meet the specific needs of ABRF members. The functionality of the new platform underwent extensive testing in early 2021 with an initial “soft” launch of the revamped program. This new exciting platform offers:

  • a website portal where mentors and mentees create profiles
  • services for mentee-initiated keyword-based matching, or manual matching by an administrator
  • support for optional guided virtual mentoring, via the custom prompts and resources the CDC developed
  • in-platform communication tools, if desired, by the pair
  • tools to capture program metrics
  • ability for mentors to set themselves as temporarily unavailable for mentoring relationships
  • ability for participants outside the U.S.

Below is the announcement of the launch of the new Mentoring Program at ABRF 2021, followed by an outline of how to participate for prospective mentors and mentees.

New Mentoring Program at ABRF 2021

Program outline:

  1. Mentors and Mentees register* and create profiles at https://abrf.sfgmentornet.com
  2. Mentees start the process using keyword-based searches to find mentors, and then request a match with a possible mentor
    1. Alternatively, Mentees can request that an Administrator find a Mentor for them.
    2. Once paired, Mentors and Mentees should review Mentoring Prompts 1 and 2 (“Getting to Know each other” and “Aligning Expectations”) before tackling the Mentee’s needs
      1. The remaining Guided Virtual Mentoring Prompts 3-6 are optional.
      2. The mentoring relationship will last 6 months.
      3. Participants are asked to fill out evaluation surveys at 3 weeks and 6 months.

Training guides for getting the most out of a mentoring relationship (for Mentors and for Mentees) are available in the Resources > Useful Documents section of the website

* Mentoring program participants should add the addresses [email protected] and [email protected] to their email “safe senders list” to ensure important information doesn’t end up in spam/junk folders.