Become a Mentor

Training to be a Mentor with FST and Kingscavil Consulting is FREE for FST Organisation and Individual Members.

There is a charge of £200 for Associate Members.

If you are not currently a member of FST but would like to take part in Mentor Training, find out about becoming a member.

Benefits of being a Mentor

Being a mentor is an enriching experience. As well as the having the chance to assist peers and help them reach their personal and professional development goals, there are many personal and professional benefits for you. Mentoring training is an excellent professional development opportunity. Training increases self-awareness and improves communication skills, resilience, wellbeing, significant benefits at work, at home, and in your social life.

The goal of mentoring is to assist in the personal and professional growth and development of another individual. When done well, mentoring promotes a greater sense of fulfilment and wellbeing for both the person being mentored and mentor.

In the meantime, click below to find out more about this year’s mentor cohort!

FST Mentor Training – what’s involved?

The course is suitable for people working in all areas of professional dance, opera and theatre, including artistic development, management, producing, audience development, production/technical, and creative learning. 

FST partners with Andonella Thomson from Kingscavil Consulting on this who delivers a bespoke Programme designed to meet the evolving needs of Scotland’s performing arts sector. All mentors on the FST Mentoring Programme are trained by Andonella. Each mentor takes the expert knowledge and experience gained through their training into their sessions with mentees.

For more information about Andonella Thomson, click here.

Training takes place over five days. The first training day is held in person. Thereafter, training takes place online.

The dates for 2024 are: 

• 8 October – Time and venue to be confirmed
  (This session takes place in person in a central location in the central belt)  
• 23 October – 10am-1pm (online) 
• 5 November – 10am-1pm (online) 
• 19 November – 10am-1pm (online)  
• 28 November – 1pm-4pm (online) 

To embed the skills learned on this course, trained Mentors commit to 8-10 mentoring sessions with two Mentees over the nine month period following the training. For each new mentor, Andonella Thomson attends two of these sessions in a supervisory capacity. 

For full information about FST Mentor Training, download FST Mentor Guidelines 2024-2025.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

FST recognises the centrality of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion as a legal and moral duty, and that improving EDI is vital to the vibrancy and success of the performing arts.

To achieve this, it is critical that we support artists/practitioners who are currently under-represented within the sector to develop their professional practice. We encourage applicants from different backgrounds and with different experiences and skills to apply to the FST Mentoring Programme.

We actively welcome applicants with protected characteristics and those who are currently under-represented in the performing arts including: people experiencing barriers due to socio-economic background, people who self-identify as LGBTQIA+, people who self-identify as D/deaf, people who self-identify as Disabled and those returning to work who have caring responsibilities, ethnically diverse people who have experienced racism including people who are from African and Caribbean diaspora, Latinx, the East Asian Diaspora, the South East Asian Diaspora, from the South Asian Diaspora, West Asian Diaspora (including Middle East), Indigenous people, bi-racial/mixed heritage or who also self-identify as a Person of Colour or Black. We might use the term The Global Majority or BIPOC+ to refer to people from these identities.

Upon submission of an application, we’d be grateful if you could complete an anonymous equalities monitoring form by following this link. You do not have to complete it and you have the opportunity not to answer any of the questions as none are mandatory.

For any enquiries, or if there is anything we can do to help to support you in the application process, please do not hesitate to get in touch by emailing hello@scottishtheatre.org.

Completed applications should be sent in Word document format to applications@scottishtheatre.org.

“Couldn’t be happier. Andonella has a fabulous personality, is an amazing trainer, extremely knowledgeable and versatile in her delivery.”

FST Mentor

• Help strengthen the sector by supporting the development of others
• Improve your communication and listening skills
• Develop new mentoring and coaching skills
• Learn new tools to develop your people management skills
• Enhance your confidence in your leadership and management skills