QualMent - Quality Mentorship for Developing Competent Nursing Students

QualMent

This project addresses the need to develop high-quality competences in nursing through identification of a clinical mentors' competence model.

Project information

Project duration

-

Funded by

Other International

Project funder

Erasmus+ KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices

Funding amount

248 808 EUR

Project coordinator

College of Nursing in Celje (Slovenia)

Contact information

Contact person

Project description

This project addresses the need to develop high-quality competences in nursing through identification of a clinical mentors' competence model and by designing a course of advanced mentorship competences for clinical mentors. Through well-planned education for mentors, this project provides high-quality structure for clinical mentoring practice and empowers nurses as educators of nursing students.

The model and course developed within this project strive to develop clinical mentors with the high-quality competences they need to perform effectively in their role and, at the same time, it will contribute in the building of a systematic approach to the development and implementation of quality education in the European Union. This developmental work is highly relevant due to the fact that all study programmes within the nursing field must be developed according to the EU directive (2005/36/ES and 2013/55/EU), which demand that half of all contact hours of study programmes be completed in clinical learning environments. Additionally, this project will develop guidelines on mentoring, which will offer clear and simple recommendations that can be used in daily mentoring practice.

Project results

The project has three main outcomes:

  1. to develop and validate an evidence-based clinical mentors’ competence model in Europe;
  2. to develop, implement and evaluate the effect of a clinical mentoring educational intervention on mentors’ competence in mentoring in four European Union countries (Finland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain);
  3. to develop international guidelines on the mentoring of nursing students.

The outcomes of the project will be translated into all official EU languages and spread at the European level.

Links

Partners

University of Oulu has extensive experience in developing mentoring and in assessing mentors´ competences and an instrument was developed for this purpose. The instrument is internationally acknowledged as a gold-standard in the assessment of mentors´ competences and several research papers have been published on the topic in high-impact scientific journals in the field.

Lithuanian University of Health Sciences is active in collaborating internationally with relevant organizations that work to develop mentoring. The nursing department has been active in the development of clinical learning environments on the European level for many years.

University of Alicante brings its expertise with shared mentoring organizational structure between mentoring of clinical nursing and nurse teacher. The university has an active network of clinical practice and many years of experience in the enhancement and integration of new knowledge.


European Federation of Nurses Association (EFN) brings expertise in dissemination activities, since they are important authority in EU in this field. The fact of having this support and being the partner institution will make the recognition and dissemination of the course and other outputs developed even greater and national accreditation process easier. This will also ensure a strong impact, since nurses and nursing associations in Europe acknowledge EFN as the main institution for development of the nursing science and education.