ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which communities of professional practice can support the mentoring role and how to build a mentoring culture. According to Csikszentmihalyi creativity can be defined as: ‘any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or that transforms an existing domain into a new one’. This recognises that creativity is not necessarily about creating something completely new but may simply be about seeing something in a different way. A mentoring culture is one in which the process of mentoring is embedded within an organisation. It becomes part of a whole organisation approach, which means that it is present at all levels and requires the facilitation of a number of mentoring opportunities as well as the support mechanisms that will aid success. The advantages of mentoring and the ways in which the process can support change in mentees are quite difficult to dispute but the benefits available to mentors are less widely acknowledged.
