An interesting couple of weeks.
Our new program is up and running and most of the matches seem to have taken off incredibly quickly and well. The beauty of being involved in youth mentoring programs is their unpredictability! I have had a few splutters trying to get the Student Online Performer completed, but I hope to have that done next week. I would prefer it completed before the mentoring relationship is too far down the road, as that gives a better idea of where the students are at when they begin the journey.
There have been some wonderful developments. One student, who was ready to leave school a few months ago, is now absolutely convinced that she needs to complete her final two years of schooling and seems pretty motivated to do so. Her mentor arranged for her to meet another mentor who works at a local tertiary education institution. This visit was a great success and the student commented that she did not know how many options there were for her until that day. Another heads off with her student to visit a small business in the area tomorrow. Yet another took his mentee to visit a few small businesses a couple of weeks ago. The student is now more motivated to move forward with his career planning and is going to ask one of the people he visited if he can have a week of work experience there.
On the flipside of the coin is the reality that students are still adolescents, have all the mood swings etc. etc. One student has spent far too much time away from school. This has hampered the mentoring relationship. The mentor helped arrange a work experience for the student. The student attended two of the four days and that about sums up where this youngster is at. Perhaps, though, the student realised that she was not cut out for that particular profession.
Mentors continually need to be reminded that the students are adolescents and their behaviour patterns are unlikely to change after one 'chat' with their mentor. I will send out a reminder about this when I email all the mentors tomorrow. I fear some mentors beat themselves up because they don't feel they are achieving enough fast enough, or they expect their mentee to change behaviour patterns, forgetting the huge peer pressure and so on. Over and over again I see my role as reminding the mentors that they are seed sowers - patience, patience, patience!
Over and above all this, I am becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of role modelling in far too many families. Parenting skills are woefully lacking ............ then, again, that's also a generalisation.
Our new program is up and running and most of the matches seem to have taken off incredibly quickly and well. The beauty of being involved in youth mentoring programs is their unpredictability! I have had a few splutters trying to get the Student Online Performer completed, but I hope to have that done next week. I would prefer it completed before the mentoring relationship is too far down the road, as that gives a better idea of where the students are at when they begin the journey.
There have been some wonderful developments. One student, who was ready to leave school a few months ago, is now absolutely convinced that she needs to complete her final two years of schooling and seems pretty motivated to do so. Her mentor arranged for her to meet another mentor who works at a local tertiary education institution. This visit was a great success and the student commented that she did not know how many options there were for her until that day. Another heads off with her student to visit a small business in the area tomorrow. Yet another took his mentee to visit a few small businesses a couple of weeks ago. The student is now more motivated to move forward with his career planning and is going to ask one of the people he visited if he can have a week of work experience there.
On the flipside of the coin is the reality that students are still adolescents, have all the mood swings etc. etc. One student has spent far too much time away from school. This has hampered the mentoring relationship. The mentor helped arrange a work experience for the student. The student attended two of the four days and that about sums up where this youngster is at. Perhaps, though, the student realised that she was not cut out for that particular profession.
Mentors continually need to be reminded that the students are adolescents and their behaviour patterns are unlikely to change after one 'chat' with their mentor. I will send out a reminder about this when I email all the mentors tomorrow. I fear some mentors beat themselves up because they don't feel they are achieving enough fast enough, or they expect their mentee to change behaviour patterns, forgetting the huge peer pressure and so on. Over and over again I see my role as reminding the mentors that they are seed sowers - patience, patience, patience!
Over and above all this, I am becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of role modelling in far too many families. Parenting skills are woefully lacking ............ then, again, that's also a generalisation.
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