Development of the Sisonke Supervision Mentoring Programme

Abstract

In this paper we map new ways of supporting and capacitating novice supervisors. During the COVID 19
pandemic, we hosted weekly online collaborative workshops designed to reflect on a process of common
learning, in which established and novice supervisors engaged with and discussed their individual supervisory
needs. This process revealed, with particular clarity, the complexities of mentoring supervisors at a University
of Technology (UoT) and enabled the development of the Sisonke Supervision Mentoring Programme (SSMP).
This new identification of key aspects offers insight and benefit to similar programmes. The Community of
Practice (CoP) theory was appropriate for this context since it allowed the construction of mentoring spaces in
which people could engage mutually in activities to improve their supervisory practices. Using an interpretivist
paradigm and inductively and qualitatively analysing transcripts revealed four key subjects for discussion:
learning should be non-hierarchical; collaboration and reflection take place in in CoPs; care rather than
competition should be paramount; and mentorship supervision is a joint responsibility.