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Mentoring advice note

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Supplementary guidance

For mentors of Chartered APC, Associate and Legal Associate membership candidates

Published June 2021

This supplementary guidance must be read alongside main guidance available at:

www.rtpi.org.uk/apc

www.rtpi.org.uk/associate

www.rtpi.org.uk/legal-associate


Your application will be rejected or deferred if you fail to comply with the main guidance.

 

Contents

1. General information
   1.1  Who is this advice note for?
   1.2  How to use this advice note

2. Introduction to mentoring
   2.1  The mentor’s role
   2.2  Characteristics of a good mentor
   2.3  What kind of support can a mentor provide?
   2.4  Who should be a mentor?
   2.5  Can a line manager act as a mentor?
   2.6  Do mentors need to register with the RTPI?
   2.7  Tips for success

3. Building your relationship
   3.1  Setting expectations
   3.2  Meeting with your mentee
   3.3  Encouraging critical reflection within the RTPI written submission

4. Mentoring in practice
   4.1  Common mentoring scenarios
   4.2  Help for mentors                                

1. General information

1.1  Who is this advice note for?

This advice note is applicable to those who are mentoring or advising Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) membership candidates. Candidates could be applying for:

 

1.2  How to use this advice note

This advice note provides guidance to those who are mentoring RTPI membership candidates. It must be read in conjunction with the main guidance for candidates available at: www.rtpi.org.uk/apc, www.rtpi.org.uk/associate or www.rtpi.org.uk/legal-associate.

 

2. Introduction to mentoring

2.1  The mentor’s role

As a mentor, you can fulfil a variety of different roles: a coach, a counsellor, a facilitator of networking opportunities, or simply a sounding board. However, you will generally need to:

  • make yourself available to provide advice and support either face-to-face, by email or over the phone;
  • attend meetings at mutually agreed times;
  • offer advice in setting specific and measurable objectives;
  • offer guidance on the production of a PDP;
  • offer advice, where appropriate, on the final written submission;
  • guide your mentee towards becoming more critically reflective of their own practice and progress; and give your mentee support and advice on professional matters.

Confidentiality is central to the mentoring process, open discussions will strengthen the relationship and lead to better outcomes. It is not your role to lead the application process, which will always be your mentee’s responsibility.

2.2  Characteristics of a good mentor

Bearing in mind the many different roles and duties a mentor may be expected to perform, the skills and qualities of a mentor may be evident in different degrees at different times. A good mentor should be:

  • Committed to the mentoring process, with a strong belief in its benefits.
  • Confident of their own knowledge, and able to share this knowledge where appropriate.
  • Able to give timely, honest feedback in a positive and constructive way.
  • Able to offer guidance and advice, without instructing or directing.
  • Able to listen patiently.
  • Compassionate and understanding of the needs of the mentee.
  • Encouraging and optimistic.
  • Able to inspire confidence and trust.
  • Able to provide an entirely confidential relationship.

Good mentors do not take their responsibility as a mentor lightly. They feel invested in the success of the mentee. Usually this requires someone who is knowledgeable, compassionate, and good at active listening.

2.3  What kind of support can a mentor provide?

Each mentoring relationship will be different, but generally speaking the types of support a mentor can provide, and the types of questions a mentee may ask, can be divided into three areas.

Planning related questions

Many planning or work-specific questions will be dealt with by the mentee’s line manager or other colleagues. However, sometimes a fresh perspective on a particular issue can be helpful, perhaps if you and your mentee work in different work environments, or different disciplines. You and your mentee will need to be guided by the RTPI Code of Professional Conduct in relation to confidentiality during these discussions: www.rtpi.org.uk/professionalstandards. Any advice or guidance you can offer in this area will be shaped by your professional career, experience and influences.

General career-related questions

Many mentees will be giving some thought to how they want to progress their career, and you may be able to provide help with this by giving insight into other areas of planning; recommending avenues to pursue; or maybe even facilitating introductions. Again, you will be guided by your own personal career history and experiences.

Questions specifically relating to RTPI membership and its requirements (including professional development planning)

These can be the most frequently asked questions, and also the ones which you feel the most uncertain when answering, particularly if you have not gone through this process yourself. You must review the main guidance if you are going to be able to effectively guide your mentee in this way.

This advice note is also designed to help, by focusing on specific aspects of the RTPI membership application process. Much of the structure of the application is built on a foundation of established practices of professional development planning and critical review – processes with which you should be familiar from your own career, appraisals and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activity. You can draw on this experience when offering advice to mentees.

It is worth noting that questions relating to the eligibility of professional experience should, for the avoidance of doubt, always be referred to the RTPI Membership Team on +44(0)20 7929 9462 or at membership@rtpi.org.uk.

2.4  Who should be a mentor?

There are no restrictions on who is an appropriate mentor for each mentee. You do not need to have been through the RTPI membership application process or even be a member of the Institute. Many of the questions and concerns that mentors can help with are non-application specific so, even without first-hand experience of the process, you may be able to offer thoughts and advice on planning and work-related questions, career planning and professional development.

Mentors do, however, need to be familiar with the main guidance and competencies and are strongly encouraged to attend an RTPI membership event. There are also additional resources on the RTPI website for candidates, which mentors should read.

Ultimately, if you don’t feel confident in taking on the mentoring role, you should always say so.

2.5  Can a line manager act as a mentor?

As a line manager, you should feel free to act as a mentor to one of your employees if you wish. The RTPI does, however, suggest that mentees think beyond their line manager – partly to maximise the support available to them, and partly to minimise possible conflicts. The mentee may also be reluctant to be critical of their performance in front of their line manager. At times, a line manager can be too close to offer objectivity on a question or issue, and having a different individual to provide a fresh perspective can be helpful.

Perhaps you might suggest that your mentee invites another member of the team, to whom they don’t report directly, to be their mentor? Alternatively, there may be opportunities for a mentor swap with another team – with you acting as mentor to a colleague in another department, and that person’s line manager acting as mentor to your employee. If there are no internal options, your mentee could look for a mentor through Young Planners groups or by contacting their RTPI Nation or RTPI Region.

Ultimately, if you are both happy with the arrangement, then a line manager / employee pairing is acceptable – as long as you have both agreed that this is right for you.

There may be circumstances where it is helpful and appropriate for a meeting to take place between mentors, mentees and line management, for example, to identify future work opportunities / projects to help develop particular competencies.

RTPI assessors cannot act as mentors

Due to the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, current assessors of RTPI membership applications cannot act as mentors.

2.6  Do mentors need to register with the RTPI?

Though it is strongly encouraged, mentoring is not a compulsory part of the application process for RTPI membership. You do not have to register with the RTPI to act as a mentor. The agreement exists between yourself and your mentee.

2.7  Tips for success

  1. Act as a sounding board: It can be very tempting for a mentor to just jump in and offer advice before their mentee has actually asked for it, especially when they’ve dealt with a similar situation themselves. Being a sounding board for your mentee, allowing them to discuss the situation with you, then helping them to think through the situation by asking them questions to draw out the consequences of various actions, is always more empowering for a mentee than advising them what to do. It helps them work through the issue and come to their own conclusions. By doing so, you ultimately help them to learn to think through issues themselves and trust their own judgement, both valuable life skills. Some mentors will be familiar with this as a coaching style approach.

  2. Provide helpful feedback: Not all feedback is helpful. A good mentor knows this and will deliver feedback in a way that will help their mentee gain insight to further develop specific qualities or skills. For example, a good mentor will always ask for permission to give feedback before doing so. Giving unwelcome feedback can be detrimental to any mentoring relationship. Instead, explain what you'd like to talk about first and highlight the benefits of doing this.

  3. Listen actively: Fully concentrate on what your mentee is saying. Understand, respond and remember what they say. Taking notes during meetings and conversations with your mentee can help with this.

  4. Provide a fresh perspective: One of the benefits of working with a mentor is that a good mentor will often provide their mentee with a fresh perspective on an issue. A good mentor will often have the clarity of distance from an issue or problem that's needed to provide objective feedback. They can also hold up a 'mirror' to the mentee to, for example, let the mentee see what their behaviour looks like to others. Highlight for your mentee any achievements they might have forgotten to help build their confidence.

  5. Ask open questions: Asking your mentee open questions will help you as a mentor to identify their real needs, values and passions. It's also a great way to get your mentee to think through situations themselves and draw out the consequences of the various choices or courses of action they can take. During these conversations, you can share your wisdom, without making decisions for your mentee – that's their job.

  6. Be a positive role model: Good mentors are respected by their mentees. A mentee can learn a lot from their mentor simply by watching how their mentor behaves in any particular situation. Good mentors will also look out for experiences, or even create situations in which their mentees can become involved to learn new things, for example, providing a look behind the scenes or a glimpse at how other people do things.

  7. Share your experiences and insights: Share stories that you feel are appropriate and helpful, but do so in a neutral way, without any attachment to how your mentee will use this learning. Be open to sharing your mistakes and failures too, as these are often where our biggest lessons are learned. It will also help your mentee be aware that challenges will arise, and the way you dealt with the situation might also help them gain insight about how to build resilience.

  8. Be genuinely interested in your mentee as an individual: A mentoring relationship is a personal one, which is often very important to the mentee. As a mentor, you should get to know your mentee, so you can help them in a way that meets their personal best interest.

  9. Encourage the take up of other support: The RTPI offers a range of events and online resources to assist candidates with the preparation of their submission. As a mentor, you can encourage your mentee to seek out and make the most of the wider support available.

Why volunteer as a mentor?

Mentoring can be great CPD. It provides a good opportunity to develop coaching, management and communication skills, and to learn from your mentee in turn.

 

3. Building your relationship

3.1  Setting expectations

Every mentoring relationship is different. Trying to establish from the outset what each of you hopes to get from and achieve in the process is a great way to begin the mentoring relationship. This will help to establish right from the start whether or not your goals are aligned, therefore limiting the problems that could arise from two individuals approaching mentoring in different ways. For example, you should agree:

  • Your role and remit as the mentor[1].
  • Where you will meet.
  • How you will contact each other and how frequently.
  • Other relevant circumstances e.g. times and dates you can be contacted.
  • Purpose / agenda for your meetings[2].

It is important to note that the decision whether or not to submit for any given deadline is taken by the mentee. Mentees may seek advice from their mentors – or indeed from others – on whether they feel they are ready, but ultimately the decision whether or not to submit is the mentee’s own. Similarly, while mentees may seek advice on the content of their submissions, they are ultimately solely responsible for the documentation they submit to the RTPI in terms of its content, order and presentation, and ensuring it arrives to meet the appropriate deadline.

All mentees are made aware of this responsibility through the main guidance but you may wish to emphasise this in any advice or guidance you give.

3.2  Meeting with your mentee

The RTPI recommends that you meet with your mentee regularly to review their progress. You may prefer to have a formal agenda for your meeting or a more informal structure. Prior to each meeting with your mentee, you should agree the purpose of your discussion, as this will ensure your mentee comes prepared, and so you can make most effective use of your time together.

You’re not obliged to base meetings on the RTPI application process or documentation, but in many cases the main guidance is a great place to start. You may want to consider the following items for your meetings:

  • Relevance of mentee’s experience: Discuss whether their experience is sufficiently within the planning sphere (if in doubt about this, contact the RTPI Membership Team).
  • Review the mentee’s Reflective Journal (only applicable to L-APC, A-APC and DA-APC candidates): Are the Journal entries sufficiently detailed and reflective?
  • RTPI membership competencies: How are they developing the competencies? Are there any competencies they aren’t meeting, why?
  • Professional development: Discuss how to set goals, objectives and actions. Track your mentee’s professional development against their PDP, are they meeting their goals, why / why not? If they haven’t started a PDP yet, encourage them to do so.
  • Provide feedback on final draft application: Review their written submission and provide constructive comments on all aspects, including general presentation.
  • Discuss / monitor general issues: For example; is there a job move planned? Threat of redundancy? Change in career aspirations? Career break e.g. travelling, parental leave?
  • (For L-APC, A-APC and DA-APC) Discuss the Reflective Journal: Has a sufficient level of detail been included? Is it helping the mentee to identify appropriate case studies?
  • (For EP-APC) Discuss the examples of professional work: Which examples will best support the case studies? How will the mentee ensure employer, client or commercial confidentiality?

You should bring a copy of the main guidance to every meeting and any other relevant resources from the RTPI website.

Listen and learn

Mentees benefit greatly from the opportunity of having a good mentor listen to them. Allow them to explore their thoughts and ideas openly with you. This will often help them unravel their thinking and gain insights about a situation as they share their concerns with you. Most mentees will value the opportunity and time spent focused on their own professional development.

3.3  Encouraging critical reflection within the RTPI written submission

The questions outlined below should help challenge your mentee and draw out the relevant information within their membership application; however, you must read the main guidance to get a detailed understanding of the written submission requirements.

Written submission: Practical Experience Statement (PES)

The PES element of the application requires candidates to set out how they meet the experience requirements for the relevant class. Some questions you could ask:

  • Have you drawn out the planning elements of your role in sufficient detail, as opposed to administration or non-planning work?
  • Is this the best way to explain your experience / structure this section?
  • Have you clearly indicated start and end dates for each role? Are gaps in work history and part-time experience explained?
  • (For L-APC, A-APC and DA-APC candidates) Have you cross-referenced to your Reflective Journal or (for EP-APC candidates) examples of professional work to provide supporting evidence of your responsibilities?

Written submission: Professional Competence Statement (PCS)

The PCS element of the application requires candidates to critically reflect on their experiences through case studies. They must demonstrate competencies within this section – all competencies must be successful for a candidate to pass. You should encourage your mentee to reflect on how they are demonstrating the competencies. Some questions you could ask:

  • What competencies are you demonstrating in this case study?
  • How did you make this decision or judgement?
  • Why did you approach this activity in this way?
  • How well did this really go?
  • What did you learn?
  • What would you do differently next time?
  • How has your work / competence progressed?
  • What do you still need to learn and how?
  • What additional experience do you need and how?

The answers could then feed into discussion of your mentee’s PDP.

Keep your mentee focused on the competencies

Candidates often spend a great deal of the word count setting out the context of each case study, at the expense of addressing the other competencies. In some instances, candidates may also select inappropriate case studies thus spending too much time on describing each activity and leaving insufficient words for detailed reflection on what was undertaken.

You should help your mentee stay focused and only include information that goes towards demonstrating the competencies to the evidence type required.

Written submission: professional development plan (pdp)

The PDP element of the application can be particularly challenging, because it requires candidates to reflect on where they want to be and how they are going to get there. Some questions you could ask:

  • Is this really a weakness / strength?
  • How do you intend to address this weakness?
  • Why is this a threat to your development?
  • Why have you chosen that goal?
  • What areas of knowledge / skills do you need to develop to achieve that goal?
  • Is this action point realistic?
  • Is that a realistic timeframe?
  • What is it you actually want to achieve by doing this?
  • How are you going to measure success?
  • Can you be sure it will take place?

Generic or formulaic PDPs will not be successful – the PDP should clearly relate to the mentee’s own development goals as identified in the written submission. In addition to the main guidance, you and your mentee should refer to additional resources at: www.rtpi.org.uk/pdpresources.

Emphasise the importance of the PDP

Mentees often leave their PDP to the last minute, treating it as a last minute add-on to the written submission. You should stress the importance of the PDP to your mentee. Mentees can be deferred, or required to enter the Institute’s PDP Support Phase, if they produce an inadequate PDP.

Is your mentee a Licentiate or Associate?

If your mentee is a Licentiate or an Associate Member of the RTPI, they are already required to keep a PDP and maintain CPD records as part of their membership. This is set out in the RTPI Code of Professional Conduct: www.rtpi.org.uk/professionalstandards. You may want to bring this to their attention.

4. Mentoring in practice

4.1  Common mentoring scenarios

Your mentoring experience should be an enjoyable one: one that utilises and develops your listening and coaching skills; one that allows you to build a constructive relationship; one that might lead you to revisit your own career plans and professional development; one that makes you feel good about what you have contributed to an individual’s professional development and to the future of the profession.

But what if problems do occur? What might these problems be? The scenarios below consider some of these and provide suggestions for avoiding or resolving problems or conflicts.

Scenario 1: your mentee is resisting your advice.

What do you do?

These situations raise the question – to what extent is challenging your mentee a useful way of supporting them? Could this become intimidating? How do you balance challenging your mentee to improve and take new approaches, against supporting them in a chosen course of action?

Do be conscious of not acting as an instructor. You are not there to tell your mentee what to do, but may certainly make suggestions of how you think they might improve, which they are free to follow or to reject. If your mentee is resisting one of your suggestions, try to understand their point of view and be sensitive to their concerns. Is there an alternative to your original suggestion? Ultimately, mentees are in charge of their own progress, so it’s not in their interest to reject good advice – perhaps there are background concerns you’re not aware of, or perhaps they genuinely don’t believe that this is the right course of action to help them.

Whatever is the case, it is useful to engage in open discussion, making clear that you are willing to support your mentee to find an appropriate solution.

Scenario 2: You are acting as a mentor for a colleague in another department. The Mentee’s line manager, who is also mentoring another candidate, suggests getting together to discuss your experiences of mentoring, as it might be a good opportunity for peer exchange.

How do you respond?

While peer group discussion as a tool for learning is encouraged, be conscious that there are extra sensitivities when it comes to mentoring, particularly when colleagues with whom you might be discussing the process know your mentee personally or professionally. You might have useful experiences to share on successfully resolving a question or concern that your mentee had – but how can you discuss these while maintaining their confidences?

If you do decide that it would be useful to meet with this fellow mentor, it would be worth raising these concerns with them in advance and trying to establish whether there is a way in which you can have a meaningful discussion without betraying any confidence.

You might also consider discussing with your mentee the fact that you are considering participating in such a session. Ultimately, you may decide that the best course of action is to decline poor exchange with colleagues who know your mentee.

Do bear in mind that as a mentor your mentee will be speaking with you in confidence and you should respect this, unless you have their permission to disclose or discuss certain information. Be mindful of your professional responsibilities under the RTPI Code of Professional Conduct in this regard if you’re a member.

Scenario 3: During discussions with your mentee, it is becoming apparent that the direction and support they are receiving from their line manager isn’t constructive.

What do you do?

Naturally, as a mentor anything that appears to restrict your mentee’s opportunities to gain good quality experience, and thus develop their professional competence, is of concern. But, regardless of whether you are an internal or an external mentor, it is absolutely worth exercising caution in not making any direct criticism of your mentee’s line manager. While you have no reason to doubt what your mentee tells you, remember that you will only ever receive one side of the story.

The most productive way of proceeding in this instance might be to support your mentee to approach their line manager themselves. There may be a formal structure in place for doing this, such as an appraisal; alternatively it might be appropriate for them to set up a meeting or informal discussion with their line manager. While accepting that there may be business imperatives that restrict the type of work employers can offer, their employee’s success in achieving RTPI membership is also in their interests as an employer. As their mentor, you may be able to suggest helpful and constructive ways of putting their case across.

(For L-APC, A-APC and DA-APC candidates) The Reflective Journal can be an extremely useful document for mentees when discussing their experience with employers, so encouraging your mentee to keep their Reflective Journal up to date, and using it as an evidence base to request more challenging work, is an approach that mentors have reported has worked successfully.

Ultimately, this scenario has a wider application for you as a mentor, in ensuring that if your mentee has a complaint or concern about a colleague or their employer that you are circumspect in your response, and avoid criticising the individual or employer. Rather than ‘siding’ with your mentee, it may be more helpful to support them in considering how they might want to resolve their problem or concern – at all times being mindful of the RTPI Code of Professional Conduct.

Scenario 4: Your mentee has gained the relevant experience for Chartered membership, but they seem reluctant to apply.

How do you respond?

We would always encourage mentors and employers to support their mentees on their route to professional membership, and to urge them to submit once they become eligible. However, the decision to submit the application is always the mentee’s own, and there is no compulsion to submit as soon as they are eligible – particularly if the mentee feels that they would actually like to gain a longer period of experience in order to further develop their professional competence and be more sure of success in the assessment.

You may want to consider working with your mentee to consider why it is they don’t yet feel confident about submitting, and how this can be shaped into a PDP to help work towards assessment stage. If there are other internal pressures to submit, such as from your mentee’s line manager, you might also want to help them think of ways of managing this and securing buy-in from their line manager.

Scenario 5: Your Mentee has submitted for Chartered membership against your recommendation. Having not been successful, they could still benefit from some additional support.

Do you continue to help them?

Whilst it may be natural to feel that they should have taken your advice, ‘I told you so’ is not going to help your mentee, or your relationship with them. By seeking further support from you they have demonstrated their continued faith in your advice and, arguably, this could be the point at which guidance and reassurance from you will be of most benefit. Assuming you still feel confident to do so, this is therefore a great opportunity to help your mentee to take on board the feedback from assessors (all candidates will receive feedback on their submission) and to identify ways to respond – either to further develop their competence in this area, or to more fully demonstrate it to the assessors.

Scenario 6: your mentee has submitted for chartered membership but they haven’t been successful. They are disappointed that some of the points in their feedback weren’t picked up by you as their mentor.

How do you handle this?

There is no doubt that this situation could cause some tension. While the decision to submit, and the responsibility for the submission lies firmly with the mentee, it can be human nature to want to blame someone for lack of success.

There is absolutely no question that your mentee’s lack of success is not your fault, so try not to respond defensively. As their mentor, you are not the expert, or there to give them the answers. At the same time, it is natural that your mentee will be disappointed not to have been successful, and this could be the most important time for a mentor to reassure and to work with them to address the assessors’ concerns, following the feedback given.

The standard for achieving RTPI membership is understandably high, and your mentee will not be alone in resubmitting

Scenario 7: You are not getting along with your Mentee, or your Mentee has approached you saying that they would like to find a new mentor.

What do you do?

Initiating a discussion about what you each hope to get from mentoring and what you hope to achieve is a good place to start. It could be that it is not a problem in your relationship, but that the mentee doesn’t have a commitment to mentoring. We do strongly recommend that mentees take advantage of all support available to them, but if your mentee wants to ‘go it alone’ then ultimately that is their decision.

Such circumstances are seldom anyone’s fault. Mentoring is based on a two-way relationship and, as with all relationships, sometimes they don’t work out. In the event that you both agree it would be better all round to end the mentoring relationship, this doesn’t reflect badly on either of you. Your mentee is free to identify an alternative mentor if they wish – and you are free to take on the mentoring role for another candidate.

These circumstances arise only very rarely but, in the event that this happens, do try to reflect on your previous relationship and take some of the experiences forward into your next mentoring experience.

4.2  Help for mentors

You may want to seek out complimentary CPD activities to consolidate your mentoring experience, such as structured reading, or training on effective mentoring techniques.

If you have any questions about the RTPI membership application process in advance or during mentoring, there is support and guidance available to you. Raising questions or concerns in advance can be a great way of preparing for that eventuality. Do contact us at membership@rtpi.org.uk or on +44(0)20 7929 9462.

 

[1] See section 2.

[2] See section 3.2.