One word: Mentorships.
In my current community, it's lacking. Not like, Gee I wish there was more. But more along the lines of, Gee... I wish we had it at all.
My ideal:
1. Training. Lots and lots of training. Failing, picking yourself up and going again, to eventually succeed. All done in a nice, warm, cozy, nurturing environment. Observations of the real world and practice. Comparing that to the Ivory Tower.
2. More training. More practice. And then more training.
3. Internship. Hard-hitting reality check, where you take everything you learned and apply it in the real world. It starts out in an observation capacity, eventually working toward taking the chair.
4. Graduation
5. Joining the ranks of the working schmoe.
6. Post-graduation mentorships/externships.
7. Skills improvement.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7, with continual re-commitment to excellence and skills improvement, done alone or (even better) with mentors.
The reality:
1. Cursory training, where the students have an Entitlement attitude and exhibit behaviors of, "Well, I went to class and they told me I was ok... that should be good enough!"
2. Minimal supervised work expereinces
3. Stagnation (not all, but many) in one's skills
4. Consumers expecting above-average skills without allowing for opportunities to train with seasoned mentors, then bitching about how there are not enough good service providers out there.
Can I just throw my shoe at someone? I would LOVE to have mentees with me regularly on community assignments. I'd love advanced level mentees with me at my place of regular employement. Giving them opportunities to practice in a safe and supported way. However, this community has none of that. We are expected to provide top service, but are not allowed opportunities to really develop those skills in realistic ways. It's no wonder there are sucky service providers out there. It's like we push a non-swimmer into the deepend, throw them a 40 pund weight, and say, "Swim, damn you... SWIM!" and then we fault them for drowning.
It's frustrating.
Amen! That's one of the reasons I ended up where I am now...I didn't feel like I could get the kind of mentoring I felt I needed to continue to grow and take SAFE risks without putting the clients in jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteWhen does the revolution start? I'm in!