The Women in FCERM Mentoring Programme connects people who have a particular skill set (mentors) with a small group of individuals (mentees). The groups come together to learn from each other, develop, and make progress toward their personal and professional goals.
The ‘group’ element of the mentoring programme aims to build and maintain a safe and trusted relationship between the mentors and mentees. This helps everyone to feel comfortable, supported, and confident in sharing issues and concerns. The mentoring groups meet face to face and/ or virtually and cover specific issues and topics that women have told us they want support and mentoring on. These topics range from personal skills, career progression, and work-life balance.
Our mentors and mentees are volunteers who work for different organisations in the flood and water industry, which provides a range of experiences and backgrounds.
Mentors do not need to have experience being a mentor or be a woman. We have access to mentoring training and connect our cohort of mentors at the start of the programme. We also provide a library of resources which has developed over the past 6 years.
Our 2026-27 programme opens for applicants on Monday, 23rd February and remains open until Monday, 23rd March. Our programme is open for women as mentees and for men and women as mentors. If you are keen to find out more, visit our website before applications open in February and read the short intro pack, which provides details on topics, as well as key information about the application requirements and the expected time commitment.
There is even more to our mentoring programme.
We run additional training sessions throughout the year for our mentees and mentors with our lunch and learn programme. Sessions have included interview techniques, productivity, #iamremarkable, parenthood and careers; CIWEM chartership; career development and networking. These sessions are free to join and recorded, with past events accessible in our recording library.
In 2025/26, for the first time, we have also awarded a ‘Certificate of Achievement’ to those mentees and mentors who demonstrated excellent participation and commitment to the programme. As the reflections below show, this programme provides a vital role supporting personal development alongside the technical training that those in the sector undertake. Taking the time to develop these personal skills has benefits for the individual and the organisations they work for.
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Feedback from mentors and mentees consistently report the shared benefits for all taking part, whichever role you have.
Our mentors said:
“I always get a lot out of mentoring - it helps with my personal development, and I find it very rewarding seeing the change/progress in others. The women I mentor are engaging and support each other - it's a lovely group.”
“Our sessions so far have been a great opportunity for me to develop my mentoring skills, as while I have done a lot of technical leadership, I have had no formal opportunity to support others in their professional development beyond technical.”
“It requires a degree of effort to plan and prepare for the sessions, but the meetings have gone very well, and there has been great interest/participation from the group, so it is proving to be extremely rewarding. It's also an opportunity to reflect on my own experiences, which I've enjoyed.”
“It has been very positive so far. I have a great group that has knitted together well and shown a great level of interest, leading to some great discussions. Also, in preparing for the sessions, it has given me time to reflect on my own experiences, which has been interesting, plus I've learned some new perspectives from the group.”
Our mentees said:
“It has been a chance to get to work with new people that I otherwise would not have come across and develop and practice skills that I do not get a chance to work on in my day job.”
“Meeting people from different points in their careers and in different roles has improved my confidence in making career decisions. The sessions themselves have also been helpful in improving confidence in presenting and explaining things in a corporate environment.”
“Being part of the programme has allowed me to really boost my confidence and develop my skills as an individual and in a collaborative environment. It has allowed me to confidently speak up and build up a 'tool kit' of useful techniques moving forward.”
To date, the programme has supported over 700 women and involved 31 different organisations in the flood risk sector, so please do consider getting involved in the 2026-27 programme, as outlined in the article. We have opportunities for mentors, mentees, and guest speakers for lunch and learn sessions.
If you like what you have read or have a colleague you think might benefit from this programme, share this article, and visit our website to find out more before applications open on 23rd February 2026.
For more information, visit the WiFCERM website.
This article appeared in Issue 10 of Flood Industry magazine, Jan/Feb 2026 - you can view it here.