Building Strong Peer Mentoring Relationships
Peer mentors serve an integral role within a mentor network.
Typically, they are more advanced graduate students and postdocs with proximity to the current career stage of peer mentees.
Peer mentors can provide contextual insights into the hidden curriculum and guidance on navigating an academic program and serve as a bridge to more formal support systems.
The resources and tools on this page can guide mentors and mentees as they engage in an intentional and effective a peer mentoring relationship.
Self-Assessing Critical Mentoring Needs in Peer Mentoring
The FAIM Peer Mentoring Needs and Wants Self-Inventory for Mentees is a practical tool that guides mentees through a self-assessment to identify crucial needs that are contextually relevant to a specific peer mentoring relationship in the academic, professional, and personal well-being domains. The three domains in this resource correspond to those in the FAIM Mentor Network Map.
Step 1: Reflect
Imagine your “ideal” peer mentor who can contribute to your academic, professional, and/or personal success. Reflect on what you hope to learn from them.
Step 2: Prioritize Mentoring Needs & Identify Suitability
Review the Mentorship Functions listed in the Mentoring Needs Self-Inventory tables. You may choose to complete one table at a time.
Use the Mentorship Role Relevancy column to indicate how critical or necessary the function is to your peer mentor: Critical, Important, but NOT Critical, or Not Relevant.
Use the right-most column to note how a peer mentor might be well-situated to fulfill a specific mentoring function.
Establishing and Communicating Expectations
Identifying and agreeing on expectations helps peer mentors and mentees build trust and have a fulfilling relationship.
The FAIM Peer Mentoring Expectations Agreement Plan is a practical tool to support a mentor and mentee identify – within the context of a peer mentoring relationship – aspirations for the relationship, expectations for one another, and ways mentors and mentees can support one another’s growth.
For each step, mentors and mentees should fill out the plan independently. Mentors and mentees should then review each section with one another to identify divergences and convergences. Finally, they should collaboratively refine the plan to capture their compromises and agreements.
Step 1: Identify Relationship Aspirations
Fill out the first two sections – Program Mission Statement and Aspirations for Your Peer Mentoring Relationship – of the Peer Mentoring Plan. Consider the following questions:
- How will you know your relationship has been successful at the end of the program?
- What kind of relationship do you strive to have with your mentor/mentee by the end of the program?
Step 2: Name Initial Expectations
Fill out the Initial Expectations section of the Plan. Mutual expectations include the following areas: communication, health and well-being, teams and relationships, peer feedback on scholarly materials, conflict resolution, and professional and career development.
Step 3: Identify Your Goals and Learn about Your Mentee’s/Mentor’s
As you fill the Goals for the Duration of the Program section of the Plan, consider what you hope to achieve, whether it is reasonable and appropriate for your mentor/mentee to support you in your growth, and how you can work with your mentor/mentee to reach their goals.
Access and download all of the current tools within the FAIM Practical Toolkit for Mentoring available to support the development of productive and supportive mentoring relationships.