Purpose
The goal of the AHG mentorship program is to assist students in meeting their requirements for clinical training, supervision, and guidance so they can smoothly make the transition from being herbal students to being independent clinical practitioners. This program also assists students in meeting the clinical practice requirements for AHG professional membership.  

History
Mentorship, much like apprenticeship or the journeyman experience, is one of society's oldest forms of education. In many cultures, herbal training occurs almost exclusively through apprenticeship. Due to the growing need for clinical training for western herbal students, and the relative lack of availability of clinical herbal training programs, the AHG is offering the mentorship as a way for senior herbal students to make the transition to clinical herbalist. This is not a direct referral system, nor is the AHG directly involved in individual mentorship relationships, but the AHG does offer suggested guidelines for both the mentor and the student.

Benefits of the Program
The primary benefit of this program is to the student. The feedback, advice, and encouragement of a professional mentor who is a clinical practitioner can significantly enhance the student's skills as an herbalist. The program also allows both the student and the mentor to remain in their own communities, enabling them to maintain jobs and family responsibilities. This system favors the wide distribution of herbalists across the country, rather than enclaves of herbalists in communities that have an herbal training center.

Successful students of the mentorship program who progress to herbal practice ensure a strong and stable membership for the AHG. The mentorship program increases interactive networking among members.  And finally, it establishes a consistent and established entrance route for our members who come from a variety of schools and courses of study.

Structure of the Program
The mentorship combines aspects of the adult distance-learning model with on-site requirements in order to best serve students who live in geographic areas underserved by professional herbalists.

Students are expected to provide all clients with an informed consent and full disclosure form explaining their student status. They will also provide a waiver of confidentiality; the waiver should inform clients that all charts will be shown to a mentor with their name and other identifying information omitted. The waiver should also make it clear that the student will keep a list of clients seen, their addresses and phone numbers, and the dates they were seen, all of which will be part of the student's application for professional membership in the AHG; however, this list will be kept separate from clients' records, again to respect confidentiality.  Finally, clients must be informed that the student's records (in anonymous form) may be subject to a random audit and that the client may at some point be contacted by the mentor or the AHG to verify that the client did in fact see the student for herbal consultation. The informed consent and full disclosure forms, along with the waiver of confidentiality, must be signed by clients retained for the duration of the mentorship.

Students will obtain a health history and all other pertinent information from the client, recording this information on the health history forms provided in the handbook or on charts of their own.  Copies of this information will be provided to the mentor (via e-mail, facsimile, or mail) who will then review each case with the student, including the student's assessment and recommendations. It is preferable that the student reviews all recommendations with the mentor prior to presenting them to clients; therefore review sessions will need to be ongoing and regular. All follow-up visits with each client will follow this same format.

Frequency of contact between the student and the mentor, as well as duration of the mentorship relationship will depend upon the case load of the student and the student's level of experience upon beginning the mentorship program. All or part of the 400 hours of clinical training required for AHG professional membership may be accomplished by completing a mentorship.  
 
The Mentorship Handbook provides a comprehensive framework for developing a program with a mentor.  It defines criteria for using the mentorship as the foundation for the clinical training required to become an AHG Professional Member, and provides forms for documenting the mentorship.
 
Click here to download a list (periodically updated) of AHG professional members who are willing to serve as mentors.
Click here to purchase the Mentorship Handbook from our online store.