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RETIREMENT & LIFESTYLE PLANNING | |
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| ISSUE - 22 - Autumn 2005/2006 | |
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Everyone a mentor
A trusted advisor and friend. Do you fit this description? asks Kathleen Vella . If so, there's probably a young person out there desperate for you to become their mentor – and enrich your own life along the way.
Many people would never think of themselves as mentor material, yet are well-qualified for the job. A mentor is simply a more experienced person who becomes a trusted advisor and friend to someone less experienced. Traditionally, mentoring relationships form naturally: for example, when a student goes to a university lecturer for advice, a neighbour sits and listens to a friend's problems, or a senior manager takes a cadet under her wing. But in today's world, with people working longer hours and having less free time and with changes to family structures, many of us – and particularly young people – are unable to find naturally-occurring mentors.
Instead, the lucky ones are being helped by formally-established mentoring programs that use adult volunteers to assist them to realise their potential. The mentor is not a replacement for a parent, nor are they a counsellor or teacher. They are a sounding board and confidante to the young person.
Who, me?
Any caring adult can become a mentor, as long as they have good listening skills and are willing to provide support and encouragement to their mentee. And they can come from any walk of life.
Take the case of Rose: when she was approached to become part of a mentoring program for young people, she was initially apprehensive. “What skills could I possibly teach a young person?” she asked. “I have only ever been a barmaid my whole life.”
After some gentle persuasion Rose agreed to attend a welcome day and meet the students seeking mentors. She arrived at the local high school wearing tracksuit pants, a t-shirt and thongs. Sitting there in the library she looked extremely nervous and out of place.
All the volunteers took turns introducing themselves and when it came to Rose, she stood up and said quite abruptly, “I'm Rose, I've been a barmaid all my life”. And sat right back down.Then, as the students started to introduce themselves, one young girl said she was interested in working as a veterinary nurse. Rose's eyes lit up. “I can help with that – my daughter works in a vet surgery,” she exclaimed and with that the two became a match and were unstoppable. Rose realised that it wasn't necessarily her own work experiences that were important but her contacts, knowledge of the community and all the people she knew. She
helped her mentee get into the vet nursing course at the local TAFE, together they researched what was required to work in the industry and the mentee secured a part-time job in Rose's daughter's vet surgery.How do you become a mentor?
Even though you don't know it, you've probably already been a mentor – say, to someone new, younger or less experienced at work. But there are also youth mentoring programs across Australia that are crying out for volunteers. Fortunately, it's now easier to tap into these with the launch this month of an Australia-wide Youth Mentoring Network, the initiative of the four not-for-profit organisations (The Smith Family, Dusseldorp Skills Forum, Big Brother Big Sisters and Job Futures) that make up the National Youth Mentoring Partnership. Would-be volunteer mentors who would like to work with young people can now log on to www.youthmentoring.org.au to identify and contact mentoring programs in their local community.
As with any job, becoming a mentor will require you to complete a recruitment process. Expect to be asked to:
• complete a written application form
• take part in an interview
• provide two character references
• permit a criminal record check (police check) to be carried out.
Any organisation for which you volunteer should provide you with an orientation session and some form of training before you start mentoring.
In some programs this training is provided in-house while other programs utilise the TAFE system and have their mentors complete an 8-week accredited course. The training helps you to become more confident in the role
and to understand the program that you're joining.What are the benefits of mentoring?
There has been a great deal of international research carried out on the benefits of mentoring to a young person. Research by Tierney and Grossman 1 and Dubois et al 2 has shown that young mentees are less likely to become involved in criminal activity, drug and alcohol abuse or to leave school early. Instead they are more likely to have improved their academic performance and have better relationships with their teachers and family compared to their peers who are not mentored.
Researchers have also looked at the benefits of mentoring for the mentors. McLean et al 3 (cited in Grossman 1998), conducted a survey of 1504 mentors across the United States of America. Three-quarters reported that mentoring had a positive effect on their lives and 83 per cent indicated that they had personally gained something from
this experience. These experiences included feeling that they were a better person, had increased their patience, were more self-confident and had learned new skills.
As for Rose, she returned to the program the following session but this time when she arrived at the local high school, she wore a business suit, high heels, make-up and she had her hair done. When it was her turn to introduce herself, she stood tall and proud and said, “Hello, I'm Rose, and I have worked in the hospitality industry for 20 years.”
What are the pitfalls?
Mentoring requires a regular and consistent commitment from the mentor to make the relationship work. With young people (or, for that matter, those junior to you at work or in your profession) it may be fairly one-sided until the mentee feels comfortable.
It's extremely important for mentors to make a commitment over a period of time and stick to that, particularly in the case of young people like those encountered by Rose, many of whom may have had negative experiences with adults. The last thing they need is another adult who lets them down.
Mentoring relationships that succeed are usually the ones where the mentor does not see their task being to change but to support the mentee. Mentors who take the attitude that they will ‘fix' their mentee and pull them into line find they never do connect and the relationship never develops.
When the relationship does succeed it is hard to describe the feeling you get when you see your mentee develop at their own pace and fulfil their own goals. It is by far the most rewarding experience, with many mentors reporting that they feel the young (or not so young!) person has taught them more than they have given. But ask any mentee and they will tell you they would not have been able to achieve it without the support of their trusted advisor and friend.
Not real names.
Footnotes
1. Tierney JP & Grossman JB, Making a Difference: An Impact Study of Big Brother Big Sisters . P.A Public/Private Ventures, Philadelphia 2000.
2. DuBois et al, ‘Effectiveness of Mentoring Programs for Youth: A Meta-Analytic Review'. American Journal of Community Psychology Vol 30, April 2002
pp. 157-198.3. McLean, KT, Colasanto, D, & Schoen, C, ‘Mentoring matters: A national survey of adults mentoring young people'. Cited in
J. B. Grossman (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Mentoring . P.A Public/Private Ventures, Philadelphia 1998, pp. 67-83.Mentor: noun 1. an experienced and trusted adviser. 2. an experienced person in an organisation or institution who trains and counsels new employees or students.
Source: Online Compact Oxford Dictionary , www.askoxford.com
More
To find out more about mentoring in Australia visit:
Dusseldorp Skills Forum
www.dsf.org.auYouth Mentoring Network
www.youthmentoring.org.auBig Brother Big Sisters
www.bigbrotherbigsister.org.auThe Smith Family
www.smithfamily.com.auDepartment of Family and Community Services (enter ‘Mentoring' in the ‘Search' box)
www.facs.gov.auGovolunteer
www.govolunteer.com.auFor international information about mentoring try:
Mentor – National Mentoring Partnership (USA)
www.mentoring.orgNorth West Regional Education Laboratories (USA)
www.nwrel.org/mentoring
Happy landings for co-pilots
The mentors and mentees pictured in these pages are participants in the Rural Co-Pilots Program, a community-based mentoring program designed to encourage young people in the rural areas of Northern Tasmania to develop skills and confidence, and to help them to identify future learning and work opportunities.
During the program, each young participant is linked with an adult volunteer mentor to work on a community-based project for 12 weeks. Projects completed during 2005 included the repainting of a local bus shelter, creating a cookbook to raise money for youth suicide programs, running a healthy lunch for the community – and the projects completed by Matthew Nelson and Steve Colwell (main picture) and Lucas Brown and Debbie Groves (below):
• Matthew and Steve worked on developing a rose garden at the local Campbell Town Health and Community Services Centre, using materials donated from local businesses. The rose garden is now in full bloom and regularly visited by residents of the Centre.
• Debbie and Lucas also come from Campbell Town, where Debbie mentored Lucas in the art of photography. Lucas then photographed a number of places around town and developed them into a 2006 calendar to sell and raise money for buying sports equipment for his school.
One of the key elements of Rural Co-Pilots is that it provides young people with the opportunity to expand their social networks and improve their communication skills whilst working within the community.
Robyn McKinnon, Rural Co-Pilots Coordinator
Ph (03) 6397 6522
Email robyn@northerntasmania.org.au
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