NHS Education for Scotland

NHS Education for Scotland Using the CPD Mentor Section of the Nursing and Midwifery ePortfolio Accessible Word Version

Using the CPD Mentor Section of the Nursing and Midwifery ePortfolio

Getting Startedusing ePortfolio to evidence your mentoring activity for annual updating and triennial review requirements.

The NM CPD Mentor Section of the Nursing and Midwifery ePortfolio

The Nursing and Midwifery (NM) ePortfolio is available to all nurses and midwives in Scotland including those in the public, voluntary and independent sectors.

The NM ePortfolio is an electronic portfolio that provides an easy way to generate, gather and store information throughout your professional career.

You can have access to a number of different sections as part of the NM ePortfolio. For example:

NandM Nurse or Midwife Career-long section

And/or

NM CPD Mentor section

NM Student Mentor section - if you used ePortfolio as part of your mentor preparation programme

This guide will help you to get started using the CPD Mentor section to generate, gather and store information about your mentoring activity, annual updating and triennial reviews. You can then use this information as evidence towards:

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) mentor requirements, including maintenance on your local mentor register.

Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) (Department of Health 2004) development reviews for NHS mentors.

Or

Appraisals using the Continuous Learning Framework (Scottish Social Services Council 2008) where appropriate, for mentors working in care homes and other health and social care settings.

How to get a NM CPD Mentor Section or Nursing and Midwifery ePortfolio account

In the first instance, please contact your local Practice Education Facilitator (PEF) or Care Home Education Facilitator (CHEF) to see if they are able to give you access to the CPD Mentor section.

If you dont have access to a PEF/CHEF or your local PEF/CHEF does not provide this locally, please email eportfolio.nm@nes.scot.nhs.uk providing your name, email address, profession(s), where you currently work in Scotland e.g. the name of the NHS Board or care home and state that you are a mentor.

All nurses and midwives who request the CPD Mentor section will be automatically allocated the Career-long section within one month of receiving their NM ePortfolio account.

Once I got started it all just seemed to fall into place and make sense. I realised that logging my activities would provide evidence of work done with my student and would facilitate claiming mentorship competencies, NMC requirements for annual updating and triennial review. The links between the activities, the mentor competencies and the KSF core dimensions became apparent. I look forward to the next step of linking ePortfolio, the KSF core dimensions and my Personal Professional Development. More and more in our chosen career we are expected to provide evidence of our lifelong learning. Having the majority of your evidence stored electronically in one place will be a great benefit.

Catriona Brown, Mentor

How to access the NM CPD Mentor Section of your Nursing and Midwifery ePortfolio

Once you have received your NM ePortfolio account username and password you are ready to go!

Access the internet from any computer and go to:

www.nhseportfolios.org

Enter your username and password and click on Log In. You will be prompted to change your password the first time you log in.

You will automatically be logged in to the role selected at the last log out. You can access the NM CPD Mentor section by selecting the role from the top tab.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section

The following four areas are good places to start to help you to generate, organise and store evidence of your mentorship activity.

These four areas are:

Profile

You can use this to manage your personal details and upload useful information to your personal library e.g. an information sheet or certificate from a mentor update.

Forms

You can access a range of forms to gather and organise your mentor evidence e.g. reflective account, record of mentor meeting and mentor log forms. This area can also support you to gather feedback from others, be used towards evidence of your mentoring activity and to inform your future CPD as a mentor.

Personal Development Plan (PDP)

You can add mentor PDP activities to help you plan how you will meet your CPD needs as a mentor and the NMC mentor requirements.

Competencies

This area allows you to demonstrate and link your evidence to the NMC mentor competencies.

The next section of this guide provides practical examples of how you can use the CPD Mentor section to evidence your mentoring activity, annual updating and NMC triennial review requirements.

You can also access a detailed CPD Mentor User Guide within the Support and Resources area of your NM ePortfolio.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

The NMC requires all qualified mentors to maintain and develop their knowledge, skills and competence as a mentor through regular updating (NMC 2008:30). There are many different ways that you can use your CPD Mentor section to record ongoing evidence of your mentoring activities.

How can I record evidence of my mentoring activities?

The Mentor Log Form is a good place to start as it provides a quick and easy way to record your ongoing mentoring activities over a period of time.

You can access the Mentor Log Form, by selecting Forms then Mentor Log Form and Add New Log, which will provide you with a Mentor Activity Form.

Using this form, you can record the different types of mentoring activities that you may have undertaken. For example you may choose to record the number of students that you have mentored, the date that you attended a mentor support forum or completion of a mentor e-learning module.

You can then use your completed Mentor Log Forms to demonstrate evidence of annual updating and mentoring activity towards the NMC triennial review requirements.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

How can I record more detailed information about specific mentoring activities that I have undertaken?

The Forms area provides a number of different templates to help you to record your mentoring activities in an easy and structured way.

For example you could use:

The Record of Mentor Meeting form to record key learning points following attendance at a face to face PEF or CHEF led mentor update or discussion with your team regarding a students progress.

The Assessment Judgements form to record the decisions that you made when raising a cause for concern or having a reflective conversation with a student regarding their learning opportunities and the subsequent actions that you then took to support the student.

The Reflective Account form to describe your role in an educational audit, the positive outcomes and any aspects that could be improved or to reflect upon providing feedback to a student.

You can access the different form templates by selecting Forms then Summary Overview.

It is important that you anonymise or exclude any person identifiable information (colleagues, students and patients/service users) as part of your evidence within the sections of your NM ePortfolio. Further information can be found in the Support and Resources area of your CPD Mentor section.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

How can I use the evidence of my mentoring activities to demonstrate maintenance of the NMC Mentor Competencies?

When you save your completed evidence form, you will automatically be given the option to link your form with other information within your CPD Mentor section e.g. a file in your personal library, a competency or another evidence item.

By selecting Link With A Competency you can link the evidence that you are saving with the relevant NMC mentor competency.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

For example, you could complete a reflective account relating to your experience of mentoring a student; describing how you identified the students learning needs, facilitated learning opportunities and made assessment decisions. In this case, you could then link your reflective account to demonstrate achievement of the relevant facilitation of learning, assessment and accountability and evaluation of learning NMC mentor competencies.

Linking your evidence as you record it will support you to demonstrate your maintenance of the NMC mentor competencies. This may also help you to identify any NMC mentor competencies that you need to focus on developing further in preparation for your NMC triennial review.

Using your NM CPD Mentor Section: To record evidence of annual updating activities

I am preparing for my annual KSF/PDP review, how can I use the information within my CPD Mentor Section as evidence towards my KSF?

When you link your evidence to the relevant NMC mentor competencies, the information icon identifies the KSF core dimensions mapped to that competency.

For example, the NMC mentor competency to, have effective professional and interprofessional working relationships to support learning for entry to the register (NMC 2008:20) is linked to the KSF core dimens