35. School is back and all the WOW! moments

Yesterday the mentors and mentees met for their final term or semester. There was a wonderful buzz in the room after the mentees had returned to class and soon it was obvious why this was the case.

It was a catch-up session, yet mentors were just blown away at what mentees were doing and saying eg, one mentee told her mentor that she would be staying at school next year rather than leaving, which had been her original plan. She still had to tell her parents, but wanted the mentor to know. Higher school retention is one of the GR8 MATES goals. This mentor is now working through different career choices with the mentee. Another has a mentee heading off to work experience in a couple of weeks and he is soooooo motivated for this. He has used his initiative to set up the work experience and wants to be offered an apprenticeship at the end of his week of work experience. His mentor is sharing ways to make this possible. Three months ago this mentee was drifting, demotivated, desperate to leave school. Now he has a purpose! Another program goal achieved. Another received the most awesome email message after the mentoring session, the mentee saying how much she had enjoyed the mentoring relationship and was excited about some of the future career matters they were planning together. Yet another informed her mentor that she would be making some phone calls to a potential employer - 6 weeks ago that would not have happened. The mentor was still in shock, I think, as she shared this. Another mentor is battling with her mentee who announced yesterday that he wanted to leave school. There is no way he is ready to do so and we discussed strategies to help him see the options available to him. This mentor has achieved so much with her mentee, yet battles to see it. The School Coordinator and I can see it and tell her as such - how important it is to affirm these mentors! A brief email from that mentee to his mentor overnight just saying how much he had enjoyed catching up again after the holidays, said heaps! And, so I can go on ........ as all the mentors were leaving, the Principal came out of his office. He stood there and greeted the mentors and then told me that he was about to ask how things had gone, but he had seen the mentors involved in animated discussions, really pumped up, so he knew the answer!

Now I am trying to recruit for another program at that school. Training is due to start in a couple of weeks and I would like a few more mentors. With the help of the local Neighborhood Centre, a group gathered this morning for an orientation. If 4 or 5 of these retired folk come on board that would be brilliant. I wish I had more time to do the recruiting.

Our other two programs get under way next week .... more on that later.

34. And then there were questions about the future of youth mentoring in Australia

No sooner was there some encouragement about the possibility of youth mentoring expanding in Australia, than an article appeared in today's newspaper suggesting that one of the most successful youth mentoring programs in New South Wales could be scrapped because of a lack of funding. No decision has been taken yet, but the program is totally dependent on State funding and the local State government seems to be doing its level best to cut funding for the most worthwhile causes!!

This particular program under threat is the Plan-It Youth program, the program on which GR8 MATES has been based.

It will be a great tragedy if all the good work done by those who have pioneered this program is not supported.

Yet again it underlines the importance of being able to obtain donor support and not become totally dependent on government funding, though this is not easy either. GR8 MATES is still exploring the donor options, but we know it is going to be a tough journey to walk unless some benevolent philanthropist with a heart for young people decides to invest in the program.

Watch this space ............

33. Australia waking up to the importance of mentoring?

During the past weekend, new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has held a 2020 Summit attended by 1000 delegates from around Australia. The purpose was to put on the table some Big Ideas for the future development of Australia. As with all such summits, there was criticism of the selection of the delegates, not a true representation of the Australian population, Kevin Rudd wanting to be photographed with the Who's Who of Australia, predictable ideas being placed on the table, many of which were Labour Party thoughts anyway, too much time listening to politicians stroking their own egos and so on.

From the reports I have read, I was amazed there was not more of a focus on the education of our young people. There are serious issues in a society when one is constantly hearing about the teenage binge drinking, more and more abuse of drugs, increasingly violent and antisocial behaviour of too many of our young people, a lack of respect for authority figures and so much more. The family unit is disintegrating more and more and we have to listen to the vocal few, who receive far too much media coverage in my opinion, championing everything BUT what global research seems to suggest is the key to a strong, prosperous, stable society ie, the nuclear family. Indeed, last week there was even a suggestion that schools no longer be allowed to use the word 'mum' and 'dad' ... thankfully, quickly shot down, though where will this end, I wonder? Anyway, it seemed as if much of this was ignored by the Big Ideas people, though I hope I am incorrect.

Coming out of the summit were quite a few references to mentoring programs. While sometimes the word was incorrectly used, at other times it was positively suggested and that is encouraging. It will be interesting to see whether anything comes out of this, once again because the government will be wanting quick-fix solutions to win votes for the next election. That's not a cynical statement, but a true one, which is a sad reflection of society in a way. Are we all falling into the instant gratification syndrome, I am wondering more and more?

I was conducting a Career Transition Survey pilot in one of our local schools towards the end of last term. The idea behind this survey, to be completed by 13 to 19-year old students, is to find out what they are thinking about their futures, whether or not they have a career path, know where to look for information, are being hindered by a variety of personal or family matters etc. I decided to throw in a question asking whether or not these young people would like a non-judgmental person to move alongside them and meet at the school for one hour a week for six months to talk about careers etc. ie, what GR8 MATES is trying to achieve. 54 of the 69 students who completed the survey, most of whom were 15 to 17 years of age, said they would like a mentor. I am now keen to run this survey in more schools to see if there are more students feeling like this. If so, it will be a very powerful message about mentoring to take to the government at Federal and State level.

32. New mentors, school holidays, processing and planning

I always find it inspiring and motivating when I interview potential mentors after they have completed their training. They are so enthusiastic, keen to begin the mentoring journey and, in some cases, are already offering their expertise as volunteers in support of the program development.

I have almost finished processing the applications for the 19 new mentors due to begin in our two new school programs in a couple of weeks. Just chasing up a couple of references and then the letters will go out inviting the mentors to join the program and to attend the matching sessions with the potential mentees during the first week of May. While all this administration is time-consuming, it is necessary and ensures that GR8 MATES meets the international Quality Assurance Standards which will give it credibility as it seeks to expand. In addition to the 3 schools already involved in the GR8 MATES program, we now have a further 9 schools definitely wanting to commit to the program. This can only happen with more funding, as I have mentioned elsewhere before.

We are now into the second week of school holidays. The day before the schools closed their doors for the holidays, I ran orientation programs for the two groups of students volunteering to be matched with a mentor. In one school, the enthusiasm was so great that most of the students already had their Parent's Contract returned and signed! Both programs have more students interested than we have mentors. While there might be some disappointed students when we get down to the matching, these are all positive signs for the future growth of the program.

I have collected most of the Log Sheets completed thus far by the current crop of mentors. These are simply a record of when they met with their mentees, the sort of things they talked about/covered and a record of any concerns the mentors had. These sheets are inspiring reading and I can see how so many of the mentees have been growing in self-confidence. For some mentors the mentoring journey might seem like a bit of a roller-coaster ride, yet that is pretty normal for this age group. With less than a term to go before the program formally ends, it will be fascinating to see what happens between now and then, the outcomes of the Exit Surveys and how many of these relationships will continue beyond the formal part of the program. One mentor has already told me she is keen to mentor her mentee until the end of the year, as she feels they have made a great connection and he will need support and encouragement to see through the year at school.

Lots of good things happening!

31. A Mentoring WOW moment!!!!

I was weary this morning heading to the office. My working day is packed full of appointments and things to do and I had to head off to a 9.00 am appointment. Before doing so I checked my emails and how pleased I am that I did so. This is the email I received:

Hi Robin,

Thought i would just let you know that i didn't receive this email in time so i headed up to school today as per usual...which turned out to be a great thing!! I ran into [School Coordinator] on my way into the office and he looked shocked to see me, understandably! But he said he had asked the mentees yesterday if they would be interested in being there as usual or skipping school basically??? [My mentee] had said yes, and hadn't received the message that it had been cancelled anyway... So the great part of this is that he was at school today because of the GR8 Mates Program!!! How cool is that :-) he had the option to skip but came to school because as far as he knew the program was going on and he was happy to be a part of it!!! I think that is fantastic and a great testimony to the results this program achieves with these kids... Just Tops!!!

Hope you have a great week .............

Teachers in New South Wales were involved in Industrial Action yesterday which meant we had to cancel the mentoring session. I had informed the mentors the previous day, but this particular mentor had not read the email and it turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise. Why this story is so great is because her mentee has been one of the challenging ones, but she has followed one of the golden rules of our program, once echoed by a student:"Don't quit on us!"

Another Wow moment which makes all our work worthwhile!!

30. Recruiting Baby Boomers

A busy time as I finish the training for our two new programs due to start in mid-May and spend the next few days interviewing the mentors 1:1 to complete the screening process. While I am doing this, they will individually complete the on-line Mentor Profiler. Tomorrow I visit the two schools involved in the pilot program to orientate their students and get them to complete the Pre-program Survey. I am going to push the fact that their mentors are awesome resources with heaps of networks they can access to help these young people transition from school to the work place successfully.

I remain in awe of all these mentors - wonderful, wonderful people with such compassionate natures :-)

I have spent the past week developing material to help us with our recruiting. We are going to target the Baby Boomers in a big way, as they must be the future of the volunteer mentoring group!! I spent a couple of hours at one of our local Volunteer Centres last week. The Coordinator was telling me that she has over 60 volunteers on her books, the majority of whom were over 50. She already had a list of 15 she was going to contact for the next program we are running in July, so I am hoping this will become a great partnership. One of our current semi-retired mentors is offering to speak about the program to groups like this and we are working on his presentation at the moment. He will also target the University of the Third Age folk as potential mentors and possibly train them as well - I still need to do more work on the training program for such an eventuality.

In the meantime, we have had 8 schools saying they want to be part of the GR8 MATES program. In addition to the 3 already participating, this brings to 11 the number of schools keen to participate in GR8 MATES. Why this is important is because we now have the ammunition to go looking for money in a big way during the next few months. Without more funding we will be unable to start another program.