Posted on March 22, 2024 by eporter
Customize Mentoring Trainings to Reflect Your Program
When offering training to mentors, mentees, and parents/caregivers of mentees involved your mentoring program, you likely want to be sure that the trainings you offer not only provide essential information participants need for a successful mentoring relationship but also reflect your program’s specific mission, policies, practices, and branding. Mentoring Central offers options to customize any of our mentoring training courses, so you can elevate your program participants’ training experiences and achieve your program’s goals.
Posted on February 27, 2024 by eporter
Why Cultural Competency Training Should Be Offered to Mentors and Mentoring Program Staff
Abbey N. Collins, B.A
In the United States, the number of youth involved in mentoring programs has grown considerably over the past century since the establishment of the first organized mentoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.1,2 In particular, mentoring programs are popular interventions for a great number of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) youth.3,4 In fact, it is estimated that approximately 76% of the mentees served in the U.S. are BIPOC children and adolescents; however, the majority (53%) of the mentors who serve these populations are non-Hispanic White individuals.3,5 This discrepancy in race and background often creates a “sociocultural gap” in which there is a disconnect between the experiences of the mentors and their mentees, which might have deleterious impacts, not only on the mentoring relationship but also on the mentee.6,7 To address this gap, youth mentoring programs have begun implementing cultural competency training for mentors to help mentors better understand the background and experiences their mentees bring to the mentoring relationship.
Posted on February 16, 2024 by eporter
Why Your Mentoring Program Should Provide Training to Parents/Caregivers of Mentees
A common misconception about mentoring is that an impactful mentoring experience for a child consists solely of a supportive relationship between a mentor and a mentee. In truth, the model of successful mentoring is complex and consists of various interdependent relationships between the mentor, mentoring program staff, and parents or caregivers of the mentee, all working together to contribute to positive, impactful experiences for the mentee.1
Posted on January 19, 2024 by eporter
Tips for Recruiting Committed Mentors to Your Program
Many mentoring programs have difficulty recruiting mentors to volunteer in their program and begin a mentoring relationship with a mentee. Program staff often report challenges to 1) recruiting a sufficient number of mentors to match the number of mentees enrolled in their program, 2) recruiting mentors who have similar interests to mentees, 3) recruiting mentors whose skills and motivations match the program’s goals, and 4) recruiting mentors who are committed to the mentoring relationship who will not leave the relationship prematurely. To address these recruitment challenges, we have outlined some tips to consider while recruiting mentors to volunteer in your mentoring program, so you can locate and enroll committed, trusting mentors to meet the unique needs of each of your mentees.
Posted on December 20, 2023 by eporter
Supporting Mentees During the Holidays: A Guide for Mentors and Mentoring Program Staff
The holiday season can be an exciting and joyful time to gather with loved ones and plan celebrations, but it can also be a stressful time for both children and adults. During this time of year, families may face stress caused by changes in normal routines and schedules, financial burdens, pressure to socialize, or grief that is exacerbated during the holidays. Short-term stress, such as that often experienced during the holidays, can be beneficial to youth when they are in a supportive environment with a trusted adult. Experiencing stress in this way may promote resilience and help youth create mechanisms for dealing with stressful situations in the future. However, when stress is severe and/or long lasting, it may increase a child’s risk of cognitive impairment and lead to disease development into adulthood. Fortunately, research shows that support from a caring adult may prevent or reverse these harmful effects of stress on the health and wellbeing of young people.
Posted on November 30, 2023 by eporter
How Your Mentoring Program Could Benefit from Mentoring Central’s Annual Membership Plan
Every mentoring program has important training and evaluation needs related to preparing their matches for the mentoring relationship and improving their program’s practices; however, the process of searching for resources or tools to address all of your program’s needs can be challenging and time consuming. Many mentoring programs want to provide staff, mentors, and parents involved in their program with online training and have asked for opportunities to receive easy access to an array of training and evaluation resources. Mentoring Central responded to this need by creating a simple, affordable Annual Membership plan that combines all of its mentoring products into one comprehensive bundle. Mentoring programs can choose which bundle best fits the size of their program.
Posted on November 28, 2023 by eporter
A Guide to Finding Evidence-Based and Research-Informed Training Programs for Mentoring
Implementing high quality training is an integral step in the process of building and maintaining a successful mentoring program. Research has shown that mentor training programs that prepare mentors to establish a meaningful connection with their mentee may directly impact mentee outcomes, volunteer retention, and mentors’ feelings of satisfaction and self-efficacy as a mentor. Training mentees about what a mentoring relationship is, what they can expect from their match meetings, and how they can benefit from mentoring may ease their anxiety and uncertainty about entering a relationship with a mentor, and therefore yield more positive outcomes for the mentee. In addition, training programs for mentoring program staff and parents of mentees may better prepare parents and staff to support the match and set them up for a successful mentoring relationship.
Posted on August 31, 2023 by eporter
A Guide to Finding Funding and Grants for Mentoring Programs
So, you have big plans for your youth mentoring program, and you’re ready to develop, expand, and hit the ground running, but you don’t have the funding or resources you need to launch a new mentoring program or take your current mentoring program to the next level? There are numerous organizations and foundations that provide funding and grants for mentoring programs to apply for, so you can provide evidence-based training to your mentors, offer high quality resources and activities to matches, employ a team of professional mentoring program staff, evaluate your program, and more. You just need to know where to find the resources to help!
Posted on July 31, 2023 by eporter
One of the most challenging parts of being a mentor to a child or teenager is jointly planning activities to do together. Breaking the adult-child decision-making paradigm of adults making all of the decisions is critical to establishing an effective mentoring relationship. One area to regularly practice sharing power with a mentee is in making decisions together about how to spend mentoring meetings. Mentors should ask mentees which mentoring activities are the most engaging, feasible, and beneficial for them.
Posted on June 23, 2023 by eporter
Successful mentoring programs that foster impactful experiences for mentees should be supported and maintained with proven mentor management practices, which include providing mentor support as matches navigate their mentoring relationships.