Mentorship

Mentorship is a collaborative relationship in which an experienced and knowledgeable person offers knowledge and guidance to a less experienced person to develop their skills and abilities, bolster their confidence, and enhance their resilience. 

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In a workplace context, this may mean that a senior employee is matched with a junior employee, but it just as possibly may mean that the mentorship is a peer-to-peer relationship, one employee having more experience, though not rank, than the other. A third configuration may be a "Mentor Circle", in which case the mentee has a number of "go-to" people who form a team to support the employee's personal and professional growth.

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From an Indigenous culture perspective, mentorship is an appropriate approach to personal and professional development. Elders in Indigenous communities have traditionally assumed a mentoring role, nurturing, guiding, and supporting the growth of community members, particularly youth. 

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From an Indigenous perspective, informal mentoring has also had a long history, developing around shared societal values. Prior to contact with European culture, First Nations people had tribal customary practices for providing mentor-like guidance for children and youth. The whole tribe (or community) contributed to raising children; everyone had a role to play in teaching the young (Klinck et al., 2005).

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Mentorship is also an appropriate Indigenous approach to personal and professional growth because the essence of mentorship is the relationship between the mentor and mentee, relationality being central to the Indigenous culture as a way of knowing and understanding the world. 

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Elements of an Indigenous Employment Mentorship Program framework:

1. Selection of mentees for the program

2. Selection of mentors for the program

3. Matching mentors and mentees

4. Organizational support for an Indigenous Employment Mentorship Program

5. Preparation of mentors, mentees, and participating departments