44. OooH! Aaah! OW! WOW! moments this week

What a week it has been for GR8 MATES. Plenty of potentially positive events, some wobbles, some heavy reflection ..... no rest for the wicked running a youth mentoring program.

Our newly established programs are still trying to find their legs. Mentors are being incredibly patient, tolerant and understanding. With a couple of mentees in one program 'appearing' to be truanting from school, it makes it difficult to involve them fully in the mentoring program and to expect busy mentors to hang around waiting for something to happen. I expect we will make some decisions next week as to whether or not to replace these youngsters. One reason is simply because the program only has a six month time limit and we want to work with students who want to be engaged at school for that period of time, giving themselves another chance to explore career options, other education options etc. It's going to be a tough call, as the young people who are 'possibly' truanting would clearly benefit from the mentoring program.

Students have been completing the Student Performer, the on-line assessment tool, and that continues to reveal heaps about these young people. One point that seems to be coming out of this activity is that a number of students are almost at the cross-roads with regard to life choices. They clearly have potential, are still battling to see the relevance of school, yet have no career pathways to travel down. The result is that they are drifting, definitely in danger of making the wrong choices which they could live to regret. Absolutely the right time to have a mentor move alongside them.

A wonderful WOW! moment took place earlier in the week. Students at this school were involved in writing exams and mentors were waiting for a couple of students to finish. Another mentee, who is keen to obtain an Apprenticeship and leave school at the end of the year, arrived to link up with his mentor. I jokingly said that Joe (not his real name) doesn't 'do' exams. His mentor reiterated the point with additional humor. I then made the comment to Joe that Angela (not her real name) was fast becoming his hero, taking sides like that. He smiled, gently placed a hand on her shoulder and said with the utmost sincerity, "She is my hero!" A young lad, disengaging from school not too long ago, is now self-motivated and trying to turn things around. His mentor commented later that she was so touched by this gesture, as it was his way of acknowledging the fact that she cares about him and the choices he makes with his life. We live for those golden gem mentoring moments.

There are a couple of other mentees going through difficult relationship issues, opening up to their mentors only a few weeks into the mentoring journey. Again, the non-judgmental, wise guide doing his or her level best to be empathetic is shining through. And so I could go on ....

At our first pilot school we are busy planning the final closure event, entitled a Celebration of Learning, about which I will write more at a later date. We are also exploring the possibility of some students from that school making a three minute video of the mentoring journey which we can include on our website for marketing and recruiting purposes. Meanwhile the 12 mentors for the next program at that school are being trained and there is now a good chance that a couple of the current mentors will each choose to mentor another student. At least three of the current mentors are going to continue mentoring their mentees until the end of the year, a wonderful gesture!!

I have been writing my mid-year report and am seeing the signs that perhaps I will soon be over-reaching myself (is there such a phrase?). I will not be able to sustain the GR8 MATES program on my own ie, finding funding, setting up a Steering Committee, completing all the admin to ensure the program meets internationally credible Quality Assurance Standards and recruiting possibly up to 60 mentors during the next few months, training them so they are ready to start in February 2009 and then supervising them all. So, I am busy reviewing the way the program is structured, exploring ways the schools can take on some fairly minor changes to the admin and putting together the Job Description (too strong a word) for a Volunteer Team Leader from within the mentoring group who would preferably be someone already involved in mentoring within the GR8 MATES program. This, after all, is what pilot programs are for.

My concern? GR8 Mates will gain momentum and I will be burnt out in the process :-(

I have had some interest from mentors wanting to serve on the Steering Committee and, this afternoon, shared ideas with another mentor who might volunteer to edit a new Blog page and quarterly newsletters etc. for the program.

In reality what I am trying to do is to recruit people on the ground who will become part of the building of this GR8 MATES program, so there is a whole group of people who will catch, shape and grow the GR8 MATES vision. Thus, if we are able to receive some meaningful funding support (I put in another application today, but need more time to do more work in this area - does that sound familiar?) we will be ready to kickstart the expansion of the program.

43. New Programs launched and new training begins

Well, we finally have our three programs up and running! Earlier this week the mentors sat with their mentees while the latter completed the Student Performer, the on-line tool we use at the beginning and end of the mentoring journey to track the personal development of the mentees. The mentors also complete their own on-line Profiler after the training and at the end of the mentoring journey.

Most mentors said they found it really valuable observing this process and learnt heaps about their mentees. Some had computer glitches, so they still have to complete the Performer. Their mentors were so impressive though. They pulled out the Student Manual and sat doing some of the 'getting to know u' activities and had a great time. I went through the completed Performers and did a quick analysis of each, which I fed back to the respective mentors to add to their own perspectives. As I commented to quite a few mentors, their mentees have entered the mentoring journey at such a good time. Some of these students look as though they are about to take off (in a positive way), but have social issues, inconsistent approaches to their academic studies, management of time and prioritising shortfalls. With the assistance of their mentors, they have a really good chance of plugging these gaps before the challenge becomes 'too hard'. Other mentors will have considerably more work to do to encourage their mentees simply to start believing in themselves.

Sadly, it looks as though one of the students who was supposed to join the program has disengaged from school. Lots of personal issues. As I said to the School Coordinator, we were probably one month too late for this young person. If she had been locked into the program a month ago, I reckon she would have had a better chance of reaching her potential. Now I wait to see if she has actually left school. If not, I have offered to spend a few sessions with her, while the mentors are mentoring their mentees, doing some of the activities in the Student Manual - the best option I can offer.

Last night was the second evening of the new training program, attended by 12 mentors. One mentor had withdrawn, as he felt he was overcommitting himself and indicated he would reconsider joining in 2009. The training seemed to go well and it's so good to experience the positive buzz around the training area, even better knowing that we have an almost 50% male/female ratio of mentors - progress!!!! :-)

42. Death of a mentor ... the value of networking ...can't say enough about it

It has been a busy week, but one of the highlights was jumping into my car and heading off on a two hour drive to meet the Coordinator of another youth mentoring program. GR8 MATES is modelled on the Plan-it Youth program which this Coordinator is involved with. I had been encouraged to meet up with her quite some time ago, but decided not to until the first GR8 MATES program was well under way. I reasoned that then we would have things to talk about, I would have heaps more pertinent questions to ask and, possibly, I could also share some of my experiences :-)

I arrived at one of the host schools to link up with her, just in time to say 'hello' to the departing group of mentors. The program has about 8 - 12 mentors in each of the 14 schools where it operates. What I didn't know until after the mentors had departed was that this particular group had just had a very tough session, as one of the mentors had been knocked over by a motor vehicle the previous weekend and had died from the injuries sustained.

How had this been handled by the school and the Coordinator? Well, the mentors had gathered together a little earlier at the school. The mentee, accompanied by a friend, had joined these mentors and, together, they had held a minute's silence, remembering the mentor and had a brief time of sharing positives about her as well. The mentee has been offered counselling etc. by the school and will participate in the end of program celebration should she wish to do so. If her parents allowed her to attend the funeral she would do so as well. I was touched by the empathetic way the Coordinator and this team of mentors had offered such immediate support to this young girl. While this untimely death had thrown all the well-laid out plans of the Coordinator, she had accepted that it was a priority, had to sort out the program's involvement in the funeral and would get back to her other work once this was all sorted. A great example to me of how to deal with a similar situation which no mentor coordinator would wish on anyone.

We had a fantastic couple of hours and, rather selfishly, as I said to her, this was perfect timing for me. GR8 MATES now has three programs operating, nine more schools want to run the program and I will not be able to launch one more program without making some changes. While I picked away at her program with question after question, she willingly shared with me all her relevant experiences. Most important she shared ideas as to how the program could expand with the use of volunteers. As already mentioned, she has programs operating in 14 schools, developed over six years, and uses volunteers extensively to manage and run the programs in these different schools. The School Coordinator clearly has a very important role to play and, as we all know, without the Principal's support, no program is likely to be long-lasting.

I was advised to be careful about who I allow to do the training and to make sure that the participating schools are fully aware of their commitments before deciding to participate. Obviously she can't do everything and the schools have to know that from the beginning. She likes them to feel self-empowering in the partnership, though I might not adopt that approach, as GR8 MATES is still new and our Policies and Procedures are still being worked on, so we can write more specifics into the program at this point.

It was also made clear to me the urgency of setting up our Steering Committee so that I did not have to feel overwhelmed by the task at hand. She had come close to burn-out twice already and was learning how to let her Committee make decisions in the knowledge that she simply cannot do everything! It sounded as if her Committee was a relatively new addition to the program and is still a 'work in progress'.

So, I drove home with plenty to think about. Next day, as I opened my emails at the office, there was one from one of the local Neighborhood Centres I have been working with in recent months, suggesting we get together to discuss the composition of the Steering Committee and how they might be able to assist. Perfect timing!!

Not being one who likes reinventing the wheel, I was enormously grateful that another Coordinator from a well-established program was happy to share with me. We have agreed to keep in touch. Of course, the day after I had met with her I had a further list of questions to ask. We will be talking again tomorrow :-), this time by phone.

And, in case you think I was just taking, taking, taking - not true! I left her with a copy of our Policies and Procedures on the understanding that it is still a 'work in progress' - she seemed interested in adapting our Mentor Log sheet for her program - as well as some of my published material.

41. And the third new program gets under way

On Thursday the third GR8 MATES program got under way in one of our Hawkesbury Schools and what a great time it was, too. One of the new mentors phoned me early in the day to say she had had an altercation with a horse the previous day and was at one of the local hospitals waiting to see the doctor, as the damage was around her eye. I suggested that her health was more important than anything else and that she should not panic about making the mentor matching session, but we would make a plan for her to meet up with her mentee on another day.

I received a couple of text messages as I was driving to the school, informing me that this mentor was on her way! While she obviously arrived late, it was a wonderful example to the students of how committed these mentors are to the program. She and her mentee got on wonderfully well, which was awesome to see .....

It looked as though most of the other matches also got off to a good start, although it's way too early to jump to any conclusions. Certainly all the pairs were eagerly engrossed in discussion after they had both signed the Mentor and Mentee Contracts respectively. I asked the mentors to go through the contracts with their mentees, pointing out to both that, like a job, one has to get used to making commitments and, by signing the Contracts, they were making a commitment to positively participate in the program A small life skill!

Gathering with the mentors for some snacks and a debrief after the session, there was a very positive vibe and I was already seeing the brainstorming of possibilities to make the mentoring journey a wonderful experience for all concerned.

Sadly, for the mentoring program (just being selfish!), there is a teachers' Industrial Action day planned for Thursday next week, so we will not be able to meet. It's only sad, as the time these mentors will be spending with their mentees is relatively short (six months) and every hour missed could be used in a positive way to encourage a young person to reach their potential.

40. Mentors meet mentees - a new journey begins, but!!!!!

Our second program began today with a bang! One mentor phoned me early in the day to check that her mentee was at school, as she had a particularly busy day and did not want to travel to the school if he was not there. He was at school, so all was good!

However, when I arrived at the school I discovered that the School Coordinator, who had been sick last week, was still away and the other Senior Management teacher who would have assisted was also sick! Fortunately, the Principal was up to speed with the program and together we got things sorted out, not without incident though.

The young lad about whom I had phoned earlier in the day was now absent - seemed like he was playing truant, nothing to do with the mentoring program. Another mentee was not at school, relationship and other issues confusing her young life. No-one knew where she was. Another had relationship issues that he was not dealing well with and had failed to appear.

As our program targets students beginning to disengage from school, mentors saw the reality of that today. However, I felt sorry for them, as they had travelled the distance yet were very understanding. Again, I learnt my lesson about double-checking that the students were at school prior to mentors arriving at the school. When I returned to the office, I immediately contacted the other school where the mentors meet their mentees on Thursday and asked the School Coordinator to put in place a plan to check the presence of students prior to the mentors arriving :-)

As I say, the mentors were very understanding, no doubt disappointed though, as they have been rearing to begin the mentoring journeys.

For the rest, the first session appeared to go incredibly well, some mentors expressing amazement that some of the mentees opened up so quickly and readily.

As I sit reflecting on the occasion, I cannot help but appreciate how so many young people need these non-judgmental mentors in their lives. Stories are too personal to place on this Blog, but I am hoping that there are going to be some awesome life-changing moments in the months ahead - watch this space :-)

39. Third program launch and a Parent WOW moment!

Our third program matching session took place on Thursday. A small group of 7 mentors and mentees. When I arrived at the school the mentees were sitting around - better to say lounging around - in the library waiting for everyone to arrive. I made a comment about them looking fast asleep and some responded and shared the humor.

Once the matching session began, they began to perk up. When I did a fun activity - they are all fun actually - some were a little disinterested, then they rose to the challenge and then they were all involved. Wonderful to see the transformation taking place in the space of 30 or so minutes. As I have probably mentioned before, so many of these young people are lacking in ambition, self-belief and so much more. We have done the matching now and mentors meet with mentees for the first time next week. Then, just as we get the program under way, we miss the next week because of teacher industrial action ... grrr!! Not for me to comment on this, just to ask those organising such action not to get in the way of the GR8 MATES mentor program, as every minute these youngsters spend with their mentors could be potentially life-changing :-)

I returned to work and found an email from another mentor. She was going to hear her mentee sing that night at the school and wasn't sure how to approach the mentee's parents. Indeed, she wasn't sure that her mentee actually wanted her to meet her parents! What should she do? Well, I suggested that she let the mentee take the lead and, if she was introduced to the parents, also let them take the lead to assess how much they knew about the mentoring program etc. etc. I tried to encourage the mentor not to go over the top with enthusiasm about her mentee and to be careful that the parents didn't feel threatened in any way by the mentoring relationship, even though they had given their daughter permission to participate!

Next morning the mentor sent me an email. She hadn't seen my email prior to leaving for the show, but in the end it didn't matter. She proceeded to tell me that the mentee had introduced her to her parents. The mentee's mum expressed her gratitude to the mentor for all she was doing; mum had noticed the positive changes in her daughter in recent months etc. etc. and she invited the mentee to sit with the family for the second part of the evening. If there was a Cloud 99, the mentor was higher than that. She even forgot to tell me how the mentee's vocal performance was!!

Again, it's a wonderful tale to tell, when less than a month ago the selfsame mentee was questioning the value of the mentoring relationship. Now she does not want it to end! A little help from her mentor in offering some work experience at her child's playschool, a consistently caring and encouraging attitude, some positive email messages - a combination of these have transformed this mentoring relationship. A WOW moment for the mentor, the mentee, the mentee's parents and for the GR8 MATES program indeed!!

38. Recruiting mentors - the power of sharing information

Last week I mentioned that I had been speaking to a small Neighborhood group of semi-retired and retired people and hoped that I would have 4 or 5 new mentors for the training I begin for a fourth program next week.

As I write up this blog page, I have just signed on another mentor from that group, making the total from that meeting 7!! Quite awesome. I now have 13 mentors for the training, which meets our target of between 10 and 15 mentors for each program. One mentor I have already trained will be joining this program when we are ready to begin the mentoring journey and I hope one or two other current mentors might participate as well.

Why is this important? Well, thanks to the wonderful lady who works at the Neighborhood centre, I have been able to achieve major inroads into a section of the population that would make GR8 mentors! 47% of that population are evidently retired or semi-retired. And there are possibilities of the Neighborhood Centre being involved in other programs we run as well.

Yet of even more importance is the networking with other organisations and people globally. I have been advised to create something on Face Book and some of the other sites, but I don't have that sort of time. Instead I affiliate to the Mentor Exchange Listserv (see my links page on my website http://www.yess.co.nz/) and through the sharing of information I have gained some excellent resources. Thanks, Mike and your team!! :-) What I am doing is putting into practice what all the research is saying ie, different presentations for different groups. So for this Neighborhood meeting, I stressed that we wanted their expertise, that young people really value being with them and learning from them, that the group is always meeting as a group at the school, so there is a great opportunity to bond, build community etc. and lots more.

I am not that good at chasing up people about anything, but I am glad that I contacted this person recommended to me by the Principal of the school where we are running the mentoring program. Perseverance pays off.

37. A new program gets under way - it's challenging!

Earlier this week I ran the mentor and mentee matching session at one of the schools where we are launching our GR8 MATES program. We had plenty of fun and the activities that took place were totally non-threatening and aimed at helping mentors and mentees find similar interests, values etc. One mentee muttered to the School Coordinator that he didn't see how grey-haired old people could help him and then, a short while later, chose two 'grey-haired' old people in his choice of three for the mentoring role!!

This particular group of students has so little ambition. Most don't have a clue what they want to do with their lives; most have very few people they look up to and admire, yet they all have potential and this wonderful new group of mentors will encourage them to see this.

We had a few students unable to attend the matching session as they had other school commitments or were away. This made the matching a bit of a juggling act, but I ended up comparing similar interests etc. which both parties had expressed in their Interest Surveys. No complaints received thus far, so I am feeling optimistic.

This school is a challenge, yet they have some fantastically dedicated and committed staff and a Principal doing his level best to encourage the students to see all the possibilities out there for them. Having the mentors, all successful people in their own right, arriving each week at the school, will itself be a positive development.

My only concern is that 6 months is going to be too short for these mentoring relationships, especially because the mentors will be trying to cover a lot of ground to help these youngsters make wise choices about their futures. However, it is a pilot program, so it's all a learning curve!

While we were involved in the matching session, a few students put their heads through the door to find out what was going on. When told, they wanted to know why they could not participate? That's the sort of response that we want to hear isn't it?

Tomorrow I run the matching session for the third new program. A smaller group with different dynamics. Could be interesting.

36. More WOW moments this week! Life-changing perhaps?

Yesterday was another wonderful day with the mentors and their mentees. Many of the mentees are heading off next week on a week of work experience and mentors have been actively helping this process.

One of the challenges many adolescents have to deal with is fear ie, fear about making that phone call to the person they want to speak to about a possible work experience opportunity; fear because they might be rejected by an employer and so much more. Yesterday a mentor sat with her mentee as the latter confirmed her work experience opportunity. The mentee phoned the company and first had to deal with someone who knew nothing about this. The mentee was passed on to two other people before she finally got things sorted. She was so happy after completing this process and acknowledged that she had, indeed, overcome that fear and how much easier it was having her mentor there to encourage her. The mentee is also becoming highly motivated about the possibility of teaching as a career thanks to the work she and the mentor are doing together. Both the mentor and the mentee were bubbling with enthusiasm about their plans for the next few weeks.

In my last post I mentioned a mentor who felt she was battling with her mentee. Well, yesterday was a life-changing moment, I am sure. The mentee, who has been very much one of those 'it's too hard!' youngsters, announced that he had organised his work experience since seeing his mentor last week; he personally went to sort out some other arrangements with the Careers Adviser yesterday with no help from his mentor and he shared some other information with his mentor about personal changes in his life. I think a young life is quietly crossing the bridge to great progress thanks to the persistence of his mentor believing in him.

And the young lad who is heading off to work experience next week is so pumped and ready to go and also told his mentor that he would like to stay in touch when the mentoring program officially ends in late June. His mentor also discovered quite by chance, as she was doing some work at her local church, that her mentee attends youth group there, something he had never mentioned. They chatted about that yesterday and had a good laugh! It is reassuring to know that the mentee is attending the youth group as he will be mixing with more positive role models.

Mentees are beginning to mutter that they don't want the program to end and want to keep meeting with their mentors. I think we are in for an interesting couple of months.