The Advance RI-CTR Research Mentoring Training Program is a 9-hour, peer-driven program that provides faculty mentors with skills and techniques to enhance communication with their mentees and improve outcomes for professional development and success.

This interactive training provides faculty mentors with an opportunity to experiment with various methods, and a forum to solve common mentoring dilemmas with colleagues. The training is based on a nationally recognized, evidence-based curriculum from the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) that is designed to help research mentors maximize the effectiveness of their mentoring relationships. This research mentoring training program has been tested and shown to be effective in increasing mentoring knowledge, skills, and behavior (see below for more information)

The structure of the program is based on the experience of researchers who originally developed and implemented the program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Case studies and reading materials provide tangible starting points, and the mentors often expand from the hypothetical examples to their own experiences. This training process expands attendees' knowledge through case studies and secondhand exposure to the experiences of all participants, thus enabling attendees to engage with as many mentoring experiences as they would typically handle in a decade.

Each Advance RI-CTR Research Mentoring Training session is led by faculty from Brown University or the University of Rhode Island who are CIMER/NRMN-trained facilitators. They develop customized mentoring training curricula and facilitate discussions of case studies and written mentoring tools at the training sessions. Their primary role is to enable participants to take ownership of their own learning by helping them engage in self-reflection and shared discovery and learning. They help the participants work through their thoughts and ideas and share mentoring strategies and experiences.

View a list of trained mentors here.

The published curriculum, Mentor Training for Clinical and Translational Researchers, has been successfully tested via a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT) led by the University of Wisconsin Madison. Findings include: 

• Trained mentors reported significantly higher learning gains as compared to the control. They also reported they had implemented more changes in their mentoring practice.
• 88% of seminar participants reported that the 8-hour seminar was a valuable use of their time and 90% said they would recommend it to a colleague.
• Mentees of trained mentors noted a greater number of positive changes in their mentoring relationship over the study period.

Pfund et al., Training Mentors of Clinical and Translational Research Scholars: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Acad Med. 2014;89:774–782.

We are excited to be offering the opportunity for those who have completed Advance RI-CTR's Mentoring Training Course to meet together for the Mentors Supporting Other Mentors meetings to discuss relevant topics and issues related to mentoring with other trained mentors. These quarterly meetings will take place over Zoom and will be faciliated by members of our Mentoring Steering Committee.  This will be a collaborative discussion amongst those in attendance in the fashion of peer-to-peer mentoring rather than an instructional session. If you are a trained mentor who would like to attend one (or more) of these meetings, please contact us at AdvanceRI@brown.edu.