All undergraduate study programmes in the nursing field in European Union must be developed according to the EU directive (2005/36/EC amended by directive 2013/55/EU) and European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) Competency Framework, which demand that the half of all contacts hours of each nursing study programme are done in the clinical environments as clinical practice and mentored by the clinical mentors. EFN, representing more than one million nurses over 36 National Nurses Associations at European Level is aware that in the light of current progress in nursing care, it will be necessary to increase the minimum requirements in the education of nurses in nursing care. Clinical practice is becoming a key environment for developing the clinical competences, as through the analysis of the quality of nursing care, the nurses improve their work. Even of the fact, that the clinical practice lead by the clinical mentors is of such great importance, structured and well planned clinical mentor’s education is still greatly lacking in nursing education. So there is a lack of programs to educate clinical mentors for tackling the mentors role and the unified mentors course is of a great need as quality mentoring has significant effect upon student learning outcomes The project “Quality mentorship for developing competent nursing students” offers a systematic approach to tackle this issue with developing high quality Course of advanced mentorship competences. To assure the systematic approach, we will develop Clinical mentors’ competence model which will provide new knowledge and findings regarding current situation of clinical mentoring in nursing study programmes in Europe. The model will introduce most important concepts to be integrated into education of clinical mentoring. It will be used as a base to prepare Course of advanced mentorship competences and Mentoring guidelines as another output of the project which will offer clear and simple instructions to be used in the daily clinical practice of mentoring. The most important participants of the project will be clinical mentors in clinical environment. They will be included in most of the project activities mainly for the purpose of the developing the Course of advanced mentorship competences. They will participate in testing the course by attending it and then implement the gained knowledge and skills into the mentoring process. Their contribution will be very important also in the evaluation of the course itself. Each higher education institution will include 25 clinical mentors in those activities, so altogether 100 clinical mentors will take part. Very important participants will also be teachers, researcher and experts from partner organisation. They will be a part of most of the activities that will be implemented during the project while developing outputs and results eg. literature review, research findings, analysing, developing the syllabus and curriculum of the course, ect. Implemented methodology, activities and the project results will assure systematic approach to improve current situation in clinical mentors education and will have an impact on greater clinical mentors competence. It will also raise awareness about the need of high qualified nurses working as mentors in clinical environments. It will also give long term benefits as we will aim that even after the project ends the developed Course of advanced mentorship competences, materials and Mentoring guideline will stay in use at HE institutions in nursing science and clinical environments across Europe and in this way contribute that unified mentors course will be available in all EU countries. European Federation of Nurses (EFN), as a partner of the project, will assure that the results of the project will be spread and use in all of the European countries which EFN represents (36 countries).
All undergraduate study programmes in the nursing field in European Union must be developed according to the EU directive (2005/36/EC amended by directive 2013/55/EU) and European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) Competency Framework, which demand that the half of all contacts hours of each nursing study programme are done in the clinical environments as clinical practice and mentored by the clinical mentors. So, the clinical practice is a key environment for developing the clinical competences. Even of the fact, that the clinical practice lead by the clinical mentors is of such great importance, structured and well planned clinical mentor’s education was still greatly lacking in nursing education. There was a lack of programs to educate clinical mentors for tackling the mentors role and the unified mentors course was of a great need as quality mentoring has significant effect upon student learning outcomes The project “Quality mentorship for developing competent nursing students” is offering a systematic approach to tackle this issue with developing high quality Course of advanced mentorship competences. To assure the systematic approach, we developed Clinical mentors’ competence model which provides new knowledge and findings regarding current situation of clinical mentoring in nursing study programmes in Europe. The model introduces the most important concepts that were also integrated and used as a base to prepare Course of advanced mentorship competences as another intellectual output of the project. The third intellectual output of the project - Mentoring guidelines - offers a clear and simple instructions to be used in the daily clinical practice of mentoring. Both the Course of advanced mentoring competences and Mentoring guidelines were translated in all official EU languages. In this way, we assured that their use could be widespread across EU and broader. The most important participants of the project were clinical mentors in clinical environment. They were included in most of the project activities mainly for the purpose of the developing the Course of advanced mentorship competences. They participated in testing of the course by attending it and then implement the gained knowledge and skills into the mentoring process. Their contribution was very important also in the evaluation of the course itself. Altogether 250 clinical mentors took part. Very important participants were also teachers, researcher and experts from partner organisation. They were a part of most of the activities that were implemented during the project while developing outputs and results eg. literature review, research findings, analysing, developing the syllabus and curriculum of the course, ect. Implemented methodology, activities and the project results assured systematic approach to improve current situation in clinical mentors education and has an impact on greater clinical mentors competence. It also raised awareness about the need of high qualified nurses working as mentors in clinical environments. It also gives long term benefits as we aim that even after the project ends the developed Course of advanced mentorship competences, materials and Mentoring guideline will stay in use at HE institutions in nursing science and clinical environments across Europe and in this way contribute that unified mentors course will be available in all EU countries. European Federation of Nurses (EFN), as a partner of the project assured that the results of the project were spread and will be in use in the European countries which EFN represents (36 countries).