Responsibilities of nursing schools with regard to peer mentoring ☆ Yvonne Botma ⁎, Sarene Hurter, Reneé Kotze School of Nursing (99), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein RSA, 9300, South Africa summary article info Article history: Accepted 27 February 2012 Keywords: Higher education institution Mentoring Responsibilities This article reports on the postgraduate critical care students' mentoring of the third-year undergraduate nursing students during integrated work-based learning in the critical care units. The purpose of the research was to describe what the nursing school could do to improve this mentoring programme. A qualitative de- scriptive design was used. The nominal group technique was used to gather data from the mentors and men- tees. Data from the groups were combined and qualitatively analysed into themes. Thereafter the themes were quantitatively ranked. The themes, ranking from the highest to the lowest, were orientation, organisa- tion, mentoring process, characteristics of the mentor, and feedback to the mentor. Findings suggest that the nursing school does not always optimally support the mentoring programme. It is recommended that more than one communication medium be used to disperse information among role-players. Nursing schools should develop mentors, monitor their interactions with mentees and give them feedback on their mentoring skills. It is also the responsibility of the nursing school to select mentors that match the desired profile of mentors. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction In the area of clinical nursing, staff workloads, staff shortages and staff responsibilities to patients influence the attitude of registered nurses towards students. Consequently, undergraduate nursing stu- dents are left under the supervision of inexperienced practitioners or unwilling mentors. This results in a negative learning environment (Ousey, 2009). A student stated, “sometimes we are treated as if we are there to invade their space” (MacKenzie, 2010). In addition, work-integrated learning for nursing students is frequently traumatic and stressful. This could be addressed by innovative peer support pro- grammes for example a mentoring programme (Williams and Schmollgruber, 2006). It is generally agreed that effective mentoring is beneficial for the mentor and mentee (Brathwaite and Lemonde, 2011; Kalen et al., 2010; Shin and Rew, 2010). Mentoring refers to a symbiotic nurturing and trusting relationship between two people. In this relationship, one is an experienced practitioner (mentor) who serves as role model, guide and supervisor to the other, a less ex- perienced practitioner (mentee) (Hawkins and Fontenot, 2010). Andrews (2007) asserted that the mentor is an experienced practi- tioner who is involved with students allocated to the clinical setting. Mentors have to assess, facilitate and evaluate these students in the process of attaining their learning outcomes in partnership with the university. Mentors are also known for their experience and expertise in their field of practice. They willingly assist those with less experience to grow in their field of interest (Persichilli and Daniels, 2008). A major role of the mentor is to assist and encourage students to link theory to practice in a practical setting. Due to the symbiotic nature of the men- toring relationship, the mentee also has roles and responsibilities to ful- fil. A mentee should be passionate, eager to learn and to participate, and committed to make the relationship work. It is the mentee's responsi- bility to provide the mentor with the learning outcomes and to set clear goals in collaboration with the mentor. Both, mentors and men- tees must be punctual and keep with appointment times (Sharon et al., 2009). Peer mentoring usually occurs within the same educational pro- gramme where senior students mentor junior students (Sprengel and Job, 2004). Humphrey (2010: 149) describes peer mentoring as a more experienced peer “showing the ropes” to a less experienced colleague. This article reports on a study where the mentors were also students, but in a postgraduate critical care programme. They were generally older than the average undergraduate student, were registered and experienced professional nurses and were in the pro- cess of becoming experts in the field of critical care nursing. The men- tees who participated in the research were undergraduate third-year nursing students who rotated through a variety of critical care units and needed to understand basic hemodynamic monitoring and prin- ciples of mechanical ventilation. Although the roles and responsibili- ties of mentors and mentees have been described in numerous articles very little has been said about the role of the nursing school (Happell, 2009). In this article, the viewpoints of both the mentors and mentees on how to improve mentoring of third-year Nurse Education Today 33 (2013) 808–813 ☆ The authors of this article wish to thank all the students that willingly participated in the study. Thank you to the School of Nursing and Life Hospital for their financial support. ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 27 51 4013476; fax: + 27 51 4019140. E-mail address: botmay@ufs.ac.za (Y. Botma). 0260-6917/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2012.02.021 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Nurse Education Today journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/nedt