6 CE Clock Hours
Mentorship can create a pathway to career success when the relationship is positive, constructive, and supportive. Similarly, experienced professionals can benefit from the generativity of mentorship, sharing a lifetime of experience with a novice professional. While mentorship seems a simple construct, it is a complex process that involves myriad tasks and relationships dynamics. A mentor who lacks necessary understanding of role expectations can hinder a novice’s career, and new professionals may lack the skill or access needed to find a supportive mentor. Career counselors can be an important conduit for both mentors and mentees seeking a productive match.
This course will help career counselors, coachers and other practitioners understand the subtle dynamics of the mentor relationship. From historical perspectives to the most contemporary research, we will explore this fascinating construct. Learners will develop a deep understanding of the task and relational aspects of mentorship and self-reflect on their own skills and abilities. The course will explore multicultural concepts that make mentorship accessible and supportive to the widest variety of individuals. Learners will end this course prepared to support experienced and novice professionals in establishing successful mentoring relationships and prepared to serve as mentors (or find a great mentor) themselves!
Your Instructor: Dr. Cyndi Briggs
Dr. Cyndi Briggs, LCMHC(NC), NCC has been a professional counselor since 1998. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Guilford College (NC), her masters in community counseling from Wake Forest University (NC), and her doctoral degree in counseling from Oregon State University where she served as a counseling intern in the Career Services office. She completed her dissertation research on mentorship and presented at national conferences on the topic. Her research on mentorship resulted in publications in the Journal of Counselor Education and Supervision and the Journal of Women in Educational Leadership. She is a licensed clinical mental health counselor (LCMHC) in the state of North Carolina and is a national certified counselor (NCC).
Dr. Briggs teaches in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Walden University (online). In addition to mentorship, her research agenda includes veterans’ issues, women’s issues, addiction, and professional development. She has taught at Winona State University (MN), Oregon State University, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Wake Forest University, and Guilford College. She was awarded the Bernard L. Turner award for her dissertation committee work at Walden University in 2020, and the Faculty Excellence Award for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Walden University in 2021. She was also awarded Chi Sigma Iota Outstanding Professional Award (UNCC) and the Delta Delta Delta Sorority Apple Pie Professor Award (Wake Forest University) in 2014. Dr. Briggs completed her Masters in Instructional Design and Technology at Walden in May 2022 and serves as a Subject Matter Expert in course design in the School of Counseling at Walden.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will:
Describe fundamental concepts of mentorship, including its historical foundations.
Self-reflect on the importance of mentorship in your professional and personal lives.
Identify course task and relationship aspects of mentorship.
Examine foundational concepts of mentorship within the contemporary multicultural context.
Develop a plan for incorporating concepts of mentorship into your current practice.
