Background

As the retirement rate of senior nursing faculty increases, the need to implement new models for providing mentorship to early career academics will become key to developing and maintaining an experienced faculty.

Purpose

This evaluation of a peer mentorship program for predoctoral and postdoctoral gerontological nurses examined its efficacy, utility, and potential for improvement.

Methods

A web-based survey was developed, implemented, and completed by 22 mentees and 17 mentors (71% and 61% response rates, respectively) as part of the evaluation.

Discussion

The peer mentorship program was found to be valuable by both mentors (64.7%) and mentees (72.7%) in helping mentees further develop their careers and networks and providing mentors with supported mentorship experience.

Conclusion

The peer mentorship program could serve as a model for other professional organizations, academic institutions, and consortiums to enhance and extend the formal vertical mentorship provided to early academic career individuals.

Purpose

The Hartford Gerontological Nursing Leaders (HGNL) formerly known as the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Initiative (BAGNC), in conjunction with the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Nursing Excellence (NHCGNE), developed and executed a peer mentoring program beginning in 2011 to enhance both (a) the experience of newly selected scholars and fellows to the NHCGNE and (b) the ongoing professional development of HGNL members. The purpose of this article is to describe key strategies used to develop and execute the peer mentoring program and to present formative program evaluation.

Design

The program was launched in January 2011 with seven peer mentor and mentee matches. In June 2012, the peer mentoring committee solicited feedback on the development of the peer mentoring program and changes were made for the subsequent cohorts.

Findings

An additional 12 matches were made in the following 2 years (2012 and 2013), for a total of 31 matches to date. We have learned several key lessons from our three cohorts regarding how to structure, implement, and carefully evaluate a peer mentoring program.

Conclusions

Informal evaluation of our peer mentoring program noted several challenges for both peer mentors and mentees. Having knowledge of and addressing those challenges may increase the overall quality and effectiveness of peer mentoring programs and, in turn, benefit academic nursing by strengthening the faculty workforce.

Clinical relevance

Findings from development and implementation of a peer mentoring program for gerontological faculty could lead to new and adaptable programs in a variety of clinical and education settings.