CSSE Mentorship
Vision:
To be Canada’s largest occupational health and safety mentorship platform.
Mission:
To engage, motivate, and empower occupational health and safety professionals through mentorship opportunities, and to encourage the members of the occupational health and safety community to nurture the growth and development of the next generation of professionals.
Why be a mentee?
Develop a professional network
Career guidance
Professional development guidance
Transitioning into a new role or industry
Why be a mentor?
Pass on your knowledge and experience to support a safer Canada
Develop leadership skills
To pay back to the profession
Help shape the next generation
Role of the Mentor
Competent and Available. The role of the mentor is to listen and understand as well as coach and challenge your mentee to do better. As a mentor you will act as a resource to help your mentee navigate their next career steps. You will help them think through options related to career advancement, ongoing education, or other aspects of the mentee’s professional development such as certification and accreditation. Mentors ask mentees to consider all of the options and help them think through SWOT analysis and other problem solving processes to allow the mentee to come to their own decisions. The mentors should be asking not telling.
Role of the Mentee
Initiative Taking and Accountable. The role of the mentee is to be actively invested in their own development. Mentees need to listen and act to implement the knowledge that comes from their mentor. It is the mentees responsibility to schedule and drive the agendas of the mentoring meetings. Being receptive to feedback, open to new ideas and tracking progress are also important aspects of the relationship.
Choosing a Mentor/Mentee
Mentees will be the ones to facilitate the mentor partnership. Mentees will have full access to the list of all mentors that will be searchable by location, areas of expertise, years of OHS experience and more.
Chose a mentor that will have the right experience and areas of expertise to facilitate your goals. Additional things to think about are whether you prefer in-person or virtual meetings, someone in your industry or with the same position, etc. Feel free to contact multiple potential mentors before making your final selection. You want someone you ‘click’ with that can also push you to see different options and try new things.
Mentors are not expected to be all knowing. This is an exploring and learning experience for both mentee and mentor.
Mentors will want to consider whether a mentee is the right fit for them as well. Take into account career aspirations, ambition, desire to learn, commitment, initiative, attitude and willingness to provide and receive candid information and feedback.
Establishing the mentorship relationship
Mentees should guide this process. The relationship should be goal orientated and use a development plan to establish goals, means and timelines. The suggested timeline is 6-12 months. Mentees should be the ones to arrange meetings, provide agendas and track progress. All participants in the program are required to adhere to the CSSE Mentorship Code of Conduct.
CSSE Mentorship Code of Conduct
To Participate
Login into your member portal. This can be done from any page on the CSSE website by clicking LOGIN in the top righthand corner. Ensure that your membership profile is accurate and up-to-date. Information is pulled from your membership profile to complete your mentorship application. Apply as a mentee or mentor (or both!) by clicking on the applicable option under the My Menu section.
Mentee applications will be automatically accepted. Mentors are vetted by the Member Relations Committee. Standards set by leading OHS certificates allow for automatic acceptance. Mentors are encouraged to have three to five years of work experience. All application fields must be completed for acceptance. Additional mentor reviews will be done by mentees at three and six months into any mentorship.
Please contact [email protected] with any questions.