59. Is 6 months too short for a mentoring relationship - some discoveries

Yesterday some of the students from one of our pilot programs completed their online Student Performer. They had completed this task at the beginning of the mentoring journey and now, six months later, they have completed the exact same task.

I have yet to do a full analysis, but what is revealed is the following:

• when mentors have attended training, are aware of what is required of them and consistently turn up, week in and week out at school for a six month period, they can achieve a huge amount.
• where the focus has been on encouraging these students to think about their careers and different career pathways, the program has been a resounding success.
• far more was achieved in six months than I could ever have hoped for. However, had we been able to start the program at the beginning of this year, which we were unable to do for a number of reasons, I believe these students would have made even more progress and would be in an even better space.
• this Student Performer tool from Frontline Solutions has proven to be a fantastic program evaluation tool.

On Wednesday I was about to announce that training would go ahead for the next program, which I wrote about in my previous Blog, when suddenly four potential mentors withdrew, two because of changing work and study situations and a couple unable to commit into 2009 at this stage. So, I have had to cancel the training, but seven of our current mentors have expressed an interest in continuing with another student next year.

This is fantastic news and I have suggested to the school that we go ahead, but with a smaller group, just to keep the momentum going while we await our funding future.

During the next two weeks, we will complete our two pilot programs, with all students and mentors completing the profilers - promises to be an interesting time.