Tools & Resources for Mentors
This section contains a wide range of resources to aid clinical mentors in all aspects of mentoring, from rapport-building
and communication skills, to strategies for addressing systems-issues, to conducting training of health care workers.
Relationship Building
A trusting, two-way relationship between the mentor and mentee is the foundation of effective mentoring practice.
This section includes suggestions on how to initiate and build a strong relationship of mutual respect between
the mentor and the mentee, and how to provide constructive feedback and encouragement within the mentoring relationship.
Strategies for Mentoring
Mentors work in a variety of settings in which they face a wide range of constraints and challenges. Developing
strategies and approaches to effectively carry out mentoring activities within different settings presents a
unique set of challenges. The documents in this section provide mentors with suggestions and ideas on various
approaches to mentoring, including how to conduct bedside teaching, carrying out site visits, mentoring in the
face of heavy patient loads, and strategies for addressing a wide range of systems issues.
Monitoring and Evaluation Tools
This section includes tools and resources for a mentor to use to assess the skills of providers and to assess
facility issues. Observation checklists in this section help the mentor to track providers’ improvement in their
delivery of clinical care over time. Facility checklists enable monitoring of systems improvements at a site.
The tools included have been developed by I-TECH projects around the world, and can be adapted to fit a mentor’s
particular situation and area of focus.
Training Health Care Workers
The ultimate goal of a clinical mentoring program is to build the skills of local clinicians. Clinical mentors
may provide one-on-one mentoring to a health care provider during a patient consultation, conduct stand-alone
sessions for clinical staff on various clinical topics, lead discussions highlighting the management of complex
cases, and accompany staff on rounds. This section includes resources for mentors on how to use case studies
and clinical vignettes to guide the training of health care workers.
I-TECH Curricula
This section contains I-TECH training curricula on a variety of topics related to HIV and AIDS that can be used
by a clinical mentor to conduct more formal, classroom-based training of health care workers. Each curriculum
includes sets of PowerPoint slide, facilitator guides, and participant handbooks. Clinical mentors are free
to adapt and change these materials as needed. This section includes 12 complete curricula (multiday trainings
with several slide sets) and four workshops (shorter sessions appropriate for an hour or two of training on
a focused topic). All of the curricula included here have been pilot tested by I-TECH country programs.
Please note that some of the curricula contain data and references that are specific to the country for which they were developed. All materials are in English unless otherwise noted; some curricula are written in British English and some are in American English, depending on the country for which the training was developed.