By Jo Hendry, Susan Hunt, Polly Hanson-Friend, Sarah Young, and Sophie Johnson
Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand * vol 26 no 1 * February 2020
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan,
President of the United States, 1981-89
Five third-year nursing students at Southland Institute of Technology have created a successful peer mentorship programme.
There is no better time to develop leadership skills than when you are a nursing student. Supported by staff, there are myriad ways to test your leadership ability, find out what works, what doesn’t and to fail in a safe environment. As students, we are taught to have an open mind, to notice problems and find solutions. At the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) students have been encouraged to develop a social conscience, to find the need and to fill it. As Henry Ford stated: “Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”
At the end of 2018, National Student Unit representative Jo Hendry was discussing with fellow year-two bachelor of nursing (BN) students, Susan Hunt, Sarah Young, Polly Hanson-Friend and Sophie Johnson, how they appreciated the support from the few students they knew in the year ahead of them. This gave rise to the idea that students in the second and third years of the BN could be paired up with year-one students to provide support, advice and guidance.
Over the summer, we researched the benefits of mentorship programmes and how they were run in tertiary institutions both in New Zealand and overseas.
The research revealed that students who were peer mentored in their first year of university felt more integrated into the tertiary setting and had higher retention rates. It also showed that students who had peer mentoring had higher academic grades, lower failure rates and an increased likelihood of graduating.
A recent Canadian study investigated the effect of peer mentoring on first-year nursing students. It showed mentoring reduced stress and loneliness and increased students sense of self-efficacy and psychological sense of belonging.
In January 2019, we put our proposal to create a student-run peer mentorship programme to the new head of school, Johanna Rhodes. She was immediately supportive and encouraging and provided all the guidance needed to get the programme off the ground. We formed the student leadership team for the programme.
The programme involves matching a year-two or three BN student to a year-one nursing student. Students fill in a short questionnaire asking whether they want to be paired with someone of similar age, gender, study background and culture. The mentors provide social supports and do not to act as tutors, as academic support services are already available on campus.
“Our aim was to increase retention rates for year-one students, decrease stress in what is already a stressful year, develop leadership skills in the year-two and three students and foster a strong sense of community among all nursing students at SIT. All of which we think we have achieved,” student leader Susan Hunt explained.
For the year-one students, having a mentor helps them settle into a new tertiary environment, manage their workload, build friendships and network with other students who they will eventually work with once they graduate.
The programme provides mentors with the opportunity to give back to fellow students and to further develop communication, time management and leadership skills. It also provides mentors with skills they will need to work as nursing preceptors in the future.
All mentors are provided with an official certificate from SIT stating their involvement in the programme. The certificate can be included in their curriculum vitae.
The student leadership team presented the mentorship programme to students in all three year groups of the BN in the first week of the 2019 academic year.
Students and staff were very enthusiastic. Within a fortnight of that first presentation, we were asked by both students and staff to expand the programme to include the certificate in study and career preparation (SCP) and diploma in enrolled nursing (EN) students. Seventy-eight students volunteered to mentor nearly 100 year-one students from the BN, SCP and EN courses.
With a rapidly expanding programme, the student leaders were faced with many unforseen challenges. But we feel these challenges were excellent learning opportunities, and after a few teething issues, we had the programme running smoothly within a month.
“The opportunities the programme has provided to increase my problem-solving abilities, to be decisive and to further develop my individual leadership style have been invaluable,” Jo Hendry said.
Within a month, students and staff noticed how different the campus felt. “We were receiving feedback from students that the programme had broken down the barriers between year groups, and even different nursing courses, with the EN and SCP students on board. Students were interacting with each other much more than in previous years,” student leader Polly Hanson-Friend said.
Some students may need to repeat a year or change to a different nursing course. “We have heard how having connections with students throughout the school of nursing has made this transition less stressful,” student leader Sarah Young said.
Some staff members have even discussed the possibility of conducting research on the programme and its effects. The programme organised events such as shared lunches and quiz afternoons, to further foster the sense of community among all nursing students at SIT. The programme was easy to implement, at no cost, and is working very well as a social support system. The student leaders have seen it work well within an education environment and can see the benefits of it within nursing workplaces to help combat burnout, bullying and stress.
The student leaders’ team has built a solid foundation that will be passed to the new leadership team this year. “After passing the baton to the new leaders, we are excited to see where they will take the programme. Our hope for the future is to see more students stepping into leadership roles and finding other areas in tertiary education or nursing environments that they can help improve” said student leader Sophie Johnson.
Although this is a student-led programme, it would not have worked without the support of the SIT nursing staff.
The staff created a safe environment for students to test their leadership ability, to push themselves further than they ever expected and to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
We have some other tertiary instituts have resisted the establishment of such programmes. Why would there be such resistance to developing leadership opportunities and providing programmes to further help students’ academic performance and mental wellbeing when it was so easy to establish?
Today’s nursing students are tomorrow’s leaders and creating a safe environment to test their leadership skills now should be encouraged.
Mentorship programme to continue
THE STUDENT mentorship scheme has been succesful and will continue this year, according to the head of the school of nursing at Southland Institute of Technology, Johanna Rhodes.
Research had shown the effectiveness of the inaugural student-led programme in fostering better communication and community between students, she said.
Within nursing curricula, tangible and technical skills dominated theory and clinical practice. However, the intangible skills of communication and leadership were less visible and measurable, Rhodes said. The student-led programme had provided a good opportunity for nursing students to develop these intangible skills and it was easy to implement, as there were no financial costs.
The student leadership team had built a solid foundation that would be passed to the 2020 new leadership team.
Rhodes said the research had shown mentors believed their communication skills had expanded and their leadership skills had been enriched.
Those who had been mentored had felt a sense of welcome and belonging and the programe had worked as a social support system for them. Mentor support had helped combat burnout, bullying and stress.