Section 7. Getting Feedback: Keeping Your Mentoring Program Relevant and Successful

WHY GATHER FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR MENTORING PROGRAM?

As with any type of service or community program, you'll want to monitor your mentoring program and gather feedback about how it is working. Feedback should come from both mentors and mentees and, when appropriate, from families, program staff, and other partners.

Monitoring your program can:

• Help you evaluate how well the program is meeting its goals
• Identify areas of the program that could be strengthened or improved
• Help you determine whether your program goals and activities continue to reflect the priorities of participants
• Help you better support the needs, strengths, goals, and experiences of mentors and mentees
• Help you identify concerns in the program or mentoring relationships at an early stage
• Help you understand whether participants feel respected, safe, included, and able to raise concerns
• Identify barriers related to transportation, accessibility, scheduling, communication, matching, or other aspects of participation

Feedback is most useful when participants understand how it will be used and when the program demonstrates that their input can lead to meaningful changes.

WHEN DO YOU GATHER FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR MENTORING PROGRAM?

Monitoring and gathering feedback should be ongoing. Begin early enough that problems or concerns can be identified before they become more difficult to address, and continue throughout the mentoring relationship.

Feedback can be gathered at planned intervals -- for example, shortly after a match begins, periodically throughout the relationship, and when a match ends. Program staff should also make it clear that mentors and mentees can raise concerns at any time rather than waiting for a scheduled evaluation.

The frequency of check-ins will depend on your program, the age of participants, the mentoring model, and the level of support each match needs.

HOW DO YOU GATHER FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR MENTORING PROGRAM?

There are a number of ways to monitor your mentoring program. Using more than one method can give you a fuller picture of how the program and individual mentoring relationships are working.

GROUP DISCUSSION

Mentor-mentee pairs can meet periodically with program staff to discuss what they have been doing together, what has worked well, what they have learned, and whether anything should change. They may also discuss disagreements or challenges and how they have addressed them.

Joint discussions can be useful, but they should not be the only source of feedback. A young person may be less comfortable raising concerns about a mentor while that mentor is present. Programs should also provide opportunities for mentors and mentees to speak separately with staff.

Group discussions involving several mentoring pairs can also be useful for identifying broader program strengths, common barriers, activity ideas, and areas where participants would like additional support or training. Protect individual privacy when discussing specific relationships.

INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS OR CHECK-INS

Program coordinators should meet or communicate regularly with both mentors and mentees. Early in a match, more frequent check-ins may be helpful. As the relationship becomes established, the frequency can be adjusted based on participant needs and program policy.

Separate check-ins give each person an opportunity to speak freely about the relationship. Staff should explain what information will remain private and any limits to confidentiality related to safety, safeguarding, or reporting requirements.

Questions for mentors might include:

• What kinds of activities have you and your mentee been doing together?
• What parts of the relationship have been most meaningful or satisfying?
• What has been challenging, and what support would be helpful?
• What activities or approaches seem to strengthen the relationship?
• Are there any boundaries, communication issues, scheduling concerns, or situations you'd like help thinking through?
• Do you feel you have the training, information, and program support you need?

Questions for mentees might include:

• What have you and your mentor been doing together?
• What do you enjoy or value about the relationship?
• Do you feel your mentor listens to you and respects your ideas, identity, boundaries, and goals?
• Do you feel comfortable telling your mentor when you disagree or don't want to do something?
• Are there activities you would like to do more or less often?
• Is there anything about the relationship that makes you uncomfortable or that you would like program staff to help change?
• Do you want to continue with this mentor, make changes to the match, or explore another option?

Whenever possible, give young people more than one way to provide feedback. Some may prefer a conversation, while others may be more comfortable with a short survey, text-based check-in, online form, or another accessible method.

SURVEYS OR QUESTIONNAIRES

Short surveys can help you gather consistent information from mentors and mentees about program experiences, relationship quality, accessibility, satisfaction, safety, and progress toward participant-defined goals.

Keep surveys clear and manageable. Make them available in accessible formats and relevant languages when needed. Avoid asking for personal information unless it has a clear purpose, and tell participants how their responses will be used and protected.

Anonymous or confidential surveys may also help participants raise concerns they would be uncomfortable sharing directly.

LOGBOOKS OR JOURNALS

Mentors may find it useful to keep brief notes about meetings, activities, questions for program staff, or their own learning as mentors. The program should clearly define what information mentors are expected to document and what should not be recorded.

Avoid keeping unnecessary sensitive information about mentees. Personal disclosures, diagnoses, family information, or other private details should not be recorded simply because they came up during a mentoring conversation.

If program staff need access to mentoring records, participants should understand what information is being documented, who can access it, and how it will be protected. Records should be stored securely and retained only as long as necessary under program policy.

Photographs, videos, or other identifying records should be collected or shared only with appropriate permission and according to organizational policy. Young people's accomplishments do not need to be documented visually in order to count as meaningful progress.

COMMON MENTOR-MENTEE CONCERNS THAT FEEDBACK CAN IDENTIFY

Feedback can help identify concerns within a mentoring relationship before they become more difficult to address. The goal is not to assign blame to the mentor or mentee, but to understand what is happening and determine what support or changes may be needed.

THE MENTORING MATCH IS NOT WORKING WELL

Not every mentoring match develops into a strong relationship. Mentors and mentees may have different expectations, communication styles, schedules, interests, or preferences, or the relationship may simply not feel like a good fit.

Avoid assuming that cultural or identity differences themselves are the problem. If misunderstandings arise across differences in race, ethnicity, culture, religion, disability, gender, socioeconomic background, language, or another area, consider whether clearer communication, cultural humility, accessibility support, additional training, or staff assistance could strengthen the relationship.

Participants should not be pressured to remain in a match that feels uncomfortable, unsafe, or consistently unhelpful. A coordinator can work with both people to understand what is happening and decide whether the relationship can be strengthened or whether a respectful re-match would be more appropriate.

If a match ends, look for lessons that may improve future matching, orientation, training, supervision, or program practices without treating the end of the relationship as a failure by either participant.

THE YOUNG PERSON FEELS STIGMATIZED, PRESSURED, OR UNHEARD

A young person may interpret mentoring as a punishment or as evidence that adults believe something is wrong with them, particularly if participation was initiated primarily by a school, parent, court, or other institution.

Be clear that mentoring is intended to offer an additional supportive relationship and opportunities for learning, connection, and growth. Whenever possible, participation should involve meaningful choice, and young people should have a voice in their goals, activities, and mentoring experience.

Mentors should approach mentees with respect for their strengths, knowledge, identities, interests, and agency. Screening and training should also help identify and address attitudes that position mentors as rescuers or young people as problems to be fixed.

THE YOUNG PERSON'S NEEDS OR CONCERNS GO BEYOND THE MENTORING ROLE

Mentors may sometimes learn about needs or concerns that require support beyond what a mentoring relationship can appropriately provide. These might involve significant academic support needs, substance use concerns, housing or family instability, experiences of violence or abuse, serious mental health concerns, legal issues, or immediate safety risks.

Mentors should understand the limits of their role and should not be expected to act as therapists, social workers, medical professionals, legal advisors, or crisis responders unless that is actually their professional role within the program.

When additional support may be needed, mentors should contact program staff and follow established referral, safeguarding, and reporting procedures. When appropriate, involve the young person in deciding what kinds of support would be useful and explain what will happen next rather than making decisions about them without their knowledge.

BOUNDARIES OR COMMUNICATION EXPECTATIONS ARE UNCLEAR

Feedback may reveal uncertainty about texting, social media, transportation, gifts, physical contact, meeting locations, scheduling, confidentiality, communication with families, or other boundaries. These concerns are often easier to address when the program has clear policies and mentors and mentees know whom to contact with questions.

THE PROGRAM IS CREATING BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION

Sometimes the concern is not the mentoring relationship itself. Transportation, scheduling, disability access, language, technology, program fees, family responsibilities, or meeting locations may make participation difficult. Regular feedback can help programs identify and reduce these barriers.

ADDITIONAL EVALUATION RESOURCES

The Community Tool Box includes a variety of resources that can help you evaluate and improve your mentoring program. There are also resources for gathering information about the strengths, priorities, needs, and experiences of young people, families, and communities in the Community Assessment chapter. The following evaluation chapters and toolkit may be useful starting points:

• Chapter 37. Operations in Evaluating Community Interventions
• Chapter 38. Some Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives
• Chapter 39. Using Evaluation to Understand and Improve the Initiative
• Toolkit 12. Evaluating the Initiative

 

IN SUMMARY

Every mentoring program needs a way to understand whether it is accomplishing its goals and providing safe, respectful, and useful experiences for participants. Ongoing feedback can help program staff recognize strengths, identify concerns early, reduce barriers, improve mentoring practices, and make better decisions about the future of the program.

Feedback should not come only from mentors or program staff. Young people should have regular, meaningful, and private opportunities to say how the mentoring relationship is working for them, whether their goals and boundaries are being respected, and whether they want anything to change.

Effective evaluation focuses not only on whether activities were completed or goals were reached, but also on the quality of mentoring relationships, participant experiences, accessibility, safety, inclusion, and opportunities for young people to exercise voice and choice. When programs listen carefully and respond to what they learn, evaluation becomes an important part of strengthening both individual mentoring relationships and the program as a whole.