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January is National Mentoring Month! How Can You Make a Difference in the Life of a Child?
Mark your calendar for National Mentoring Month in January! Every January, National Mentoring Month offers a great opportunity for local broadcasters to join with community groups and others to focus special attention on mentoring and its many benefits. Use the ideas and the information in this resource guide to put together your own month-long campaign.
Mentoring happens naturally all the time between children and their parents and other adult family members, or when a child strikes up a special relationship with a teacher or another adult. Creating a planned mentoring relationship is an entirely different thing. It requires a third party - whether it’s a community organization, a school, an employer or a combination of the above - to link adults who are interested in mentoring with children in the community who need it. Linking strangers is just one part of creating a responsible and effective mentoring program. Program organizers need to make sure that prospective mentors approach the relationship with the right attitudes and goals. They also need to adopt recruitment and matching strategies, orientation programs, and ongoing monitoring to assure that the program delivers results for mentors and mentees alike.
Public/Private Ventures, a leading research organization on youth issues, says that volunteers generally become involved in mentoring because they want to help young people. Those who approach the relationship wanting to reform young people typically become frustrated because they’re neglecting to put first things first. Mentoring, first and foremost, is about building trust between mentor and mentee. "Without putting in the time and effort to build a trusting relationship," according to Public/Private Ventures, "mentors cannot expect to affect the youth with whom they interact."
Building trust between mentors and mentees is not an easy task. It takes time, and it requires mentors to abide by some specific "rules of the road" that set effective mentors apart:
- Effective mentors involve youth in deciding how the pair will spend their time together.
- Effective mentors make a commitment to being consistent and dependable - to maintain a steady presence in the young person’s life.
- Effective mentors recognize that the relationship may be fairly one-sided for some time, and may involve silence and unresponsiveness from the young person. The adult takes the responsibility for keeping the relationship alive.
- Effective mentors pay attention to the young person’s need for “fun.” Not only is having fun a key part of relationship-building, but it provides young people with valuable opportunities that are often not otherwise available to them.
- Effective mentors respect the young person’s point of view.
- Effective mentors seek, and take advantage of, the help and advice of program staff.
Source: Mentoring: A Synthesis of P/PV’s Research, Public/Private Ventures
Facts about mentoring: Increasing numbers of young people in America are missing something. They need the opportunity to establish positive, supportive relationships with adults – the kind of relationships that are an essential part of the process of growing up. Mentoring helps to solve this problem by building relationships between caring, committed adults and younger people who stand to benefit from additional attention, guidance and support. It is a solution that has attracted increasing public attention in recent years as the problems facing America’s young people have become more pronounced – and as growing numbers of Americans have recognized the potential role of mentoring in promoting healthy development and growth. Mentoring has been shown to improve school performance and prevent illicit drug use, underage drinking and violence among young people. The key to mentoring’s success, say the experts, is that it enhances a child’s self-esteem and instills a sense of hope for the future.
The benefits of mentoring: Mentoring provides a wide variety of benefits for young people and adult mentors alike.
For young people Research consistently shows that relationships with caring adults in addition to one’s parents can help a young person grow up. In a landmark study of 1,000 young people – mostly urban youth ages 10-14 – researchers found that those engaged in mentoring were significantly more likely than those without mentors to have developed the attitudes and habits that can help ensure success. Compared to the other group, the children with mentors:
- Were 46 percent less likely to begin using illegal drugs
- Were 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol
- Were 53 percent less likely to skip school
- Were 33 percent less likely to engage in school violence
- Had improved school attendance and performance, and better attitudes toward completing school work
- Had improved peer and family relationships
Source: Making a Difference: An Impact Study of Big Brothers Big Sisters, Public/Private Ventures
For adult mentors: The benefits of mentoring go both ways. Time and time again, adult mentors report that their mentoring experiences have improved their lives in tangible ways. Not only do they feel better about themselves for playing a positive role in a child’s life, but they also find that mentoring teaches them more about themselves. Mentoring increases their sense of responsibility and accomplishment, and lays the foundation for better morale at work and better relationships with family, friends and coworkers.
It’s not just young people and adult mentors who benefit from mentoring. Entire communities benefit from knowing that their young people are on the right track to a successful future.
Mentoring many: In recent years, several different types of mentoring programs have emerged to meet the varying needs and interests of young people and their adult mentors, as well as employers, schools and others in the community.
One-on-one mentoring: Most people are familiar with the one-on-one form of mentoring popularized by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. In the one-on-one approach, one adult and one youth form a friendship and get together every week or so to engage in fun, every-day activities in the community, including just hanging out.
School-based mentoring: According to some experts, school-based mentoring is the most popular form of mentoring today. Organized by teachers and school officials, school-based programs match students with adults (or older students) for educational tutoring, career advice, as well as recreational and other activities.
Workplace-based mentoring: This type of mentoring occurs at the mentor’s workplace and often is sponsored by his or her employer, in partnership with a local school or community organization. Students visit the workplace on a regular basis to learn more about jobs and careers while bonding with their mentors.
Team mentoring: Team mentoring assigns a young person – often from a single-parent family – to another family or a team for a long-term relationship including frequent contact. The goal is to make the young person a part of an extended family.
Group mentoring: In group mentoring, one adult volunteer builds relationships with a group of young people. With the adult mentor serving as a facilitator and guide, the young people meet regularly for group activities and sharing.
Other types of mentoring include agency-based mentoring (at YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs, community centers, etc.); faith-based mentoring (in churches, synagogues, etc.); and residential-based mentoring (in prisons, youth shelters, etc.).
By providing young people with role models and reliable, sustained relationships with adults outside their families, mentoring can play a key role in promoting successful outcomes for America’s youth. But the promise of mentoring is lost if Americans don’t understand what it is and how they can get involved. Local radio and television broadcasters can help, both by educating the public about mentoring and by making the necessary connections between young people and caring adults.
Click here to read other articles from Mentoring.org.
Copyright © Mentoring.org, published by the MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership, covers issues on youth mentoring. Reprinted with permission.
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