New challenges to the regional education system are associated with the uncertainty and complexity of providing conditions for the continuous professional development of teaching staff and the scale of the tasks they solve to improve the quality of the educational process. The relevance of analyzing the capabilities of the mentoring institution is manifested in connection with the historically established logic of helping and supporting people in the process of fostering competencies, mastering new types of activities and unfamiliar content of education, fostering professional activities. Another trigger for this scientific research was the changed regulatory requirements to certify the teaching staff, in particular, due to the emergence of the opportunity to apply for the qualification category “teacher-mentor”. The analysis of the theory and practice of mentoring portrays the prospects for the development of the regional segment of the federal system of support for teaching staff as the main purpose of the article. To achieve it, the following methods are used: analysis of regulatory documents and scientific publications, interviewing In-Service specialists, studying and summarizing the novice practices, comparing the experience of implementing mentoring within different historical periods. The results of this research cover regional criteria for the examination of certification materials of teachers applying for a new qualification category, the system of work of one of the departments of the institute for advanced training, and the content of the activities of the center for continuous professional development in terms of the implementation of the target mentoring model.

Keywords: mentor, certification, scientific and methodological support, additional professional programs, teaching staff.