Choosing a Mentor

Choosing a Mentor is an important decision, whilst working towards a Performance Coach Qualification your mentor will be your guide, critical friend as well as many other roles.

What is a Mentor?

Your Mentor plays a key role in your development to becoming a Performance Coach.

They will be a critical friend, providing support and challenge.

Your Mentor will also conduct your pre-assessment mentoring session, listen to your coaching philosophy presentation and conduct the professional discussion to ensure you have considered your pre-assessment preparations appropriately.

How do I find a Mentor?

As part of your Performance Coach journey you will select a mentor to support you through a minimum of 3 mentored sessions.

The start point for your mentoring sessions are to register with your National Association and pay the registration fee.

You will then receive a list of available mentors; we encourage you to consider your Mentor carefully. You could choose a mentor who knows you or is involved in coaching an area of paddlesport that you’re familiar with (or your chosen discipline for Performance Coach). However, you could also choose someone different to you, who doesn’t know you or your chosen discipline which would create a different feel to the session, potentially increasing your reach into the sport or accessing different communities of practice.

Do I need to pay them? 

Your registration funds three sessions in an online format, one of the funded sessions must be your pre-assessment session which must be online as it is recorded and passed to your assessor.

If you and your mentor agree to meet face to face you will need to agree how the additional cost of meeting is covered between you.

Can I have more than 3 sessions?

Yes you can, however these sessions will need to be agreed with your National Association and each session will cost £40 (payable to your National Association) – sessions must be pre-paid for and arranged in advance.

Can my Mentor also be my Coach Developer?

This is entirely up to you to decide. There will be benefits in separating the two roles:

• To get a variety of input and experience.
• Keep a clearer distinction between the two roles.

But there are benefits to combining such as:

• Joined up conversation based on observations of you coaching.
• More time with the same person.

Tell me more about the Performance Coach?

Becoming a Performance Coach can have a huge impact on your professional and personal life.

You can find out more here in our article: Start your journey towards the NEW Performance Coach

Our on the course pages here: Performance Coach

Or read the course guide here: Performance Coach Course Guide