Chapter 4: Roles and Responsibilities

Fieldwork mentorship is one of the most crucial aspects of the students’ learning experience. It provides the framework for students to begin to examine their own skills and practice, and to develop their professional roles.

Recognizing that each setting and each student requires a different style of mentorship, some flexibility is necessary. At the same time, the College must establish some uniform standards to guarantee a quality learning experience for field placement students. The following guidelines have therefore been developed for Field Mentors:

• Each student requires a scheduled touch point meeting each week. Meetings will include regular feedback on the student’s performance, with the strengths and the areas needing development as well as the Field Mentor’s expectations, giving the student the opportunity to change accordingly. Weekly Placement Experience Forms should be completed during this meeting (please see Chapter 9 for additional information).
• The Field Mentor is to have had at least one year of experience as an employee at the field placement site.
• The placement experience will be guided by the outcomes specified for each placement experience.
• The field placement site will provide an orientation early in the placement clarifying any specific policies regarding but not limited to health and safety, confidentiality, professional deportment, anti-racist and sexual harassment policies and emergency procedures that the student will be expected to honour.