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Mentors

Mentors are qualified practitioners, who have experience in the various fields and areas of psychology.

The mentors advise their mentees in one-on-one meetings so that they can adapt to their specific and individual situations. They perform their task on a voluntary basis.

The mentors represent, amongst others, the following occupational fields of psychology:

• Psychotherapy (Child, adolescent and adult psychotherapy)
• Psychiatry and Medical Psychology
• Marriage, family, education and life counseling
• Neuropsychology
• Addiction and prevention
• Corporate and personnel consulting
• Coaching
• Mediation
• Employee and Organisation Development
• Advertising psychology
• Legal psychology
• Research and science

The mentors can take different roles as part of the consultation, depending on the needs of the interaction:

1. Teacher (passing on knowledge and experiences) The mentor as a teacher lets his mentee participate in his knowledge and experience. In addition, the role of the mentees is to question, listen and learn.
2. Role Model The mentor does not pass on his experiences verbally, but makes them "experiential": the mentee accompanies their mentor through the professional routine or work situations and learns to follow by example. At the end of this process, a reflection and discussion is necessary, in which the impressions of the mentee are evaluated and also learning experiences are examined.
3. Networker (create contacts) Networking is the mutual support and should not be confused with creating cliques whose members call for unfairness towards others. Particularly in "shadow situations", the mentee has the opportunity to connect when he accompanies his mentor.
4. Coach (encouraging self-reflection and development) When a mentor promotes the self-development as well as the independent profile building of his mentee and contributes to his horizontal growth, he coaches him. Without doubt, this is the most challenging task. Coaching competence also benefits the mentor in the other three roles

Prerequisites in the attitude and mentality of the mentor

Personal interest and enjoyment in helping others is an important and fundamental requirement for successful mentoring.

Benefit for the mentors

• Sharing their own ideas and experiences
• Reciprocal relations and exchange of experience: new impulses, suggestions and feedback from the younger generation as enrichment in their own work
• Building new networks
• Alumni from the University of Osnabrück: connections to the former university
• Certificate of commitment to the project