Section 1. Building Youth Mentoring Programs

One-on-one guidance and learning, or mentoring, is one of the oldest forms of teaching and support. Parents, caregivers, grandparents, siblings, relatives, friends, teachers, coaches, community members, and others may all serve as mentors at different points in our lives.

Mentoring programs are designed to create supportive relationships in which participants can receive encouragement, guidance, opportunities, and access to knowledge or experiences that matter to them. This introductory section offers a general discussion of the purpose of mentoring programs and some of the benefits they may provide. Reflection questions can help you decide whether mentoring is an appropriate strategy for your setting, and an overview of the remaining sections in the chapter is also provided.

What is a mentoring program?

Mentoring or partnership programs connect people who have particular knowledge, skills, experiences, or community connections with people who want to learn, grow, explore opportunities, or work toward personal, educational, or professional goals. Mentors and mentees build relationships based on mutual respect, communication, learning, and support. A strong mentoring program can help expand access to opportunities, strengthen relationships, and reduce barriers that may limit people's ability to pursue their goals.

Why should you set up a mentor or partnership program?

Mentoring programs can offer benefits for both mentors and mentees. The outcomes of any program will depend on the quality of the relationships, the structure of the program, the people involved, and the resources and support available.

• Among young people participating in strong mentoring relationships, possible benefits may include:
  • Greater confidence and sense of self-worth
  • Greater comfort building relationships with people from different racial, ethnic, cultural, or community backgrounds
  • Stronger relationships with supportive adults
  • Greater confidence and information when exploring education, career, and life choices
• Mentoring programs may support school engagement and attendance when those goals are relevant to the young person and the program
• Supportive relationships with adults outside the immediate family can be valuable for children and young people, particularly those navigating significant stress, barriers, or adversity
• Youth mentoring programs can connect young people with adults, organizations, experiences, and opportunities that may not otherwise be readily available, while giving community members meaningful ways to invest in young people's strengths and goals
• Mentoring programs can create new opportunities for learning and understanding for both mentors and mentees
• Mentoring can provide a structured way for people to share useful knowledge, skills, experiences, and connections
• Sharing knowledge and opportunities across generations and community networks can strengthen individual and community capacity
• Mentors can develop meaningful relationships, strengthen their own communication and leadership skills, and learn from the perspectives and experiences of mentees

Good reasons for starting a mentor program

• Mentoring can support confidence, belonging, and a sense of possibility
• The knowledge, relationships, and opportunities gained through a mentoring program can help young people and adults explore educational, career, and personal possibilities that may not be readily available in classrooms or workplaces
• Mentoring relationships can challenge stereotypes about professions, communities, identities, and life paths by creating opportunities for people to learn directly from one another
• Mentoring partnerships can strengthen teamwork, communication, shared learning, and community connection

How do you decide whether to set up a mentor program?

Mentoring programs can create learning and supportive relationships between two adults, between an adult and a young person, or between young people. The type of program you choose should reflect the goals, interests, strengths, and preferences of the people who will participate. Across different models, mentoring generally aims to expand opportunity, build relationships, support learning and growth, and reduce barriers.

When thinking about whether to establish a mentoring program in a school, workplace, neighborhood, or community organization, the following questions can help you decide whether mentoring is the right strategy:

• What advantages could a mentoring program offer compared with other strategies for involving community members and supporting young people's or adults' goals?
• Is mentoring an appropriate and desired strategy for the people you hope to involve?
• What do potential participants say they would like to gain from a mentoring relationship?
• What strengths, interests, experiences, and goals will participants bring to the relationship?
• What resources, training, safeguards, accessibility supports, and ongoing supervision will the program need in order to support healthy mentoring relationships?

The next point to consider is the type of mentoring program you want. Three broad models are possible: youth-youth, adult-adult, and adult-youth. Although this chapter focuses primarily on adult-youth mentoring, many of the skills discussed can be adapted to the other models as well.

Before going further, let's look at some of the relationships and activities that may develop within each of these three types of mentoring programs.

Adult-youth mentor programs:

• Mentors can offer young people consistent attention, encouragement, guidance, and another supportive relationship
• Adults can share experiences related to education, work, responsibility, problem-solving, and other life skills while recognizing that there are many different paths to success
• Young people can strengthen confidence as their interests, abilities, experiences, and goals are recognized and supported
• Adult mentors can develop meaningful relationships with young people while learning from their perspectives and experiences
• Mentors can help young people explore new experiences, relationships, resources, education, careers, and other opportunities

Youth-youth mentor programs:

• Peer mentoring may focus on academics, school engagement, transitions, leadership, social connection, or other goals identified by young people
• Young people can provide peer tutoring, encouragement, information, navigation, and support while working within appropriate boundaries
• Peer mentoring can create opportunities for both mentors and mentees to strengthen communication, leadership, academic, and problem-solving skills

Peer mentors should not be expected to provide professional counseling, crisis intervention, medical advice, or other services beyond their training and role. Programs should provide adult support, clear boundaries, and appropriate referral procedures.

Adult-adult mentor programs:

• An experienced employee may help a new or newly promoted employee learn workplace systems, expectations, or job responsibilities
• An experienced employee who is retiring or moving into another role may share institutional knowledge and experience with colleagues
• Adults may mentor one another in job skills, career development, leadership, entrepreneurship, education, or other areas
• Organizations and communities can benefit when mentoring strengthens skills, relationships, knowledge sharing, and leadership development

Even though goals vary from program to program, organized mentoring is grounded in the idea that people can continue to learn, grow, develop skills, strengthen relationships, and expand their opportunities throughout life. Mentoring should support participants' own goals and agency rather than treating mentors as people who are responsible for "fixing" or reshaping mentees.

Overview

Now that you've become more familiar with mentoring, the rest of the sections in this chapter will discuss the basics of setting up a program, including:

• Recruiting Mentors for Your Program - identify the qualities, experiences, commitment, and skills your program needs in mentors and develop an equitable process for recruiting and selecting them.
• Training Adult Mentors - determine what mentors should be trained on, including communication, relationship building, boundaries, cultural humility, youth development, safety, and the goals of the mentor-mentee relationship.
• Recruiting Youth to Your Mentoring Program - consider what matters to young people, who the program hopes to engage, how to communicate opportunities respectfully, and how to explain what participants can expect from a mentoring relationship.
• Building Youth/Mentor Relationships - help mentors and mentees communicate effectively, establish trust and boundaries, solve problems together, and build supportive relationships.
• Youth Goal Setting - support young people in identifying and pursuing goals that reflect their own interests, strengths, priorities, and aspirations.
• Monitoring and Gathering Feedback from Your Mentoring Program - gather feedback from mentors and mentees, monitor the quality and safety of relationships, identify needed improvements, and make sure the program continues to support participants' goals.

In Summary

Supportive mentoring relationships can create meaningful opportunities for learning, connection, encouragement, and growth. Mentors can share knowledge, experiences, resources, and relationships, while mentees bring their own strengths, goals, experiences, and perspectives to the partnership.

A well-planned and well-supported mentoring program can strengthen relationships and expand opportunities for young people, adults, organizations, and communities. Strong programs treat mentoring as a partnership rather than a one-way process in which one person has all the knowledge and another simply receives it. Clear expectations, meaningful participant choice, appropriate training, supportive relationships, and ongoing feedback can help mentoring programs provide lasting value.