The Mentoring Solutions toolbox is intended to share ideas and tools for individual mentors and mentor program leaders.
Background: Much of this toolbox resulted from the Mentor for Purpose initiative from 2017-18. We worked with mentor program leaders from Cincinnati and NKY to document the skills and training for mentor development. The training materials and tools are freely available to GCMLA Members. Just contact us.
Objective: The general goals are to:
- Develop new mentors as quickly as possible (more focus on quality than quantity).
- Support and grow volunteer mentors and service professionals (energized, purposeful, serving to potential).
- Introduce deeper Purpose to mentor programming. This is about helping people know themselves deeply, developing a life plan and living to their potential.
Mentoring Solutions Examples: The LSN toolbox already contains many items. Many of these “solutions” are not on-line; contact us for more information. Here is a partial list:
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- Mentor Development Planning process including Mentor Development Roadmap, Mentor Skill Assessment Tool and Process Summary Example for Orient, Train and Develop Volunteers.
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- Process documentation…process design & improvement for topics such as recruiting, training and retention.
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- Coaching Roadmaps. A “coaching roadmap” provides guidance to volunteer mentors (and mentees) to better deliver the skill-related goals of the organization.
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- Mentor Program Metrics & Dashboards. This document outlines possible metrics for mentoring programs to enable organizations to measure overall quantity, quality and impact. We believe that “you get what you measure” and that metrics selection is an important leadership task. Funders, in particular want to see specific measurable impact.
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- Mentor program startup support…we are working with a number of local organizations to startup or expand mentor programming.
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- Best Practices…our best practices tool integrates volunteer management and mentoring practices.
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- Role descriptions…Mentor Leader, Programming Leader, Volunteer Leader, Mentor, Lead Volunteer and Executive Director starter role descriptions are available.
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- Mentor recruiting and mentor retention ideas.
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- Benchmarking…sharing of local best practices.
National Mentoring.org Web Site
The Mentoring.org web site has a wealth of information for starting up and operating an effective mentoring program. Be sure to integrate this into the way you manage and lead. Here are some of my favorite links:
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- Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™. MENTOR’s cornerstone publication, the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™, details research-informed and practitioner-approved Standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs and consequently, impactful mentoring relationships. The Fourth Edition, released in September 2015, reflects the most up-to-date research, practice, and thinking in the mentoring field.
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- Becoming a Better Mentor. MENTOR’s Becoming a Better Mentor: Strategies to Be There for Young People is a free resource written by experts in the field to benefit any adult looking to support young people.
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- Guide to Mentoring Boys and Young Men of Color. MENTOR and My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBKA) together sponsored the creation of a guidebook “Guide to Mentoring Boys and Young Men of Color.” The Guide serves as a supplement to the fourth edition of The Elements of Effective Practice for MentoringTM, and includes additional recommended practices focusing on boys and young men of color (BYMOC).
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- E-Mentoring. MENTOR’s e-mentoring resource offers best practices for e-mentoring programs.
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- Start a Mentoring Program. Whether you are exploring the idea of starting a program in your area, conducting a needs-assessment to see if there is a need for a mentoring program in your community or are already in the process of establishing a program, the following steps can help you find the resources and tools that you need to develop and implement a quality-based mentoring program.