Using counselling skills to enhance the confidence of mentors’ decision making when assessing pre-registration nursing students on the borderline of achievement in clinical practice

SummaryThe concept of counselling as a helping process, focusing attention on the interrelatedness of individuals and their world, is a critical aspect of contemporary nursing. Counselling skills also have implications for nurses involved in mentoring pre-registration nursing students, particularly where accurate, credible and accountable assessment hinges on how well students and mentors have invested in a learning dialogue. Such concerns become especially relevant to those students on the borderline of achieving clinical learning outcomes. This paper highlights a reconstructed narrative between a mentor and this author concerning a student on the borderline of achievement in clinical practice. The use of counselling skills in helping mentors to focus on complex assessment issues relating to pre-registration nursing students are subjected to a detailed critical analysis. The fragility of such encounters is underlined, as well as a need for mentors to engage in reflexive practice.