Mentoring 101

Everything You Wanted to Know About Mentoring but Were Afraid to Ask By NCLD/Youth

Mentoring is relationship between two or more people. It can be formal or informal. Sometimes people find mentors on their own, or sometimes people can be assigned to mentor in school, work, or community programs. Mentoring brings young people together with caring individuals (adult and peers). Mentors can give advice, and help young people learn information, skills and abilities they need. For mentoring to work well, the mentor and mentee(s) need to trust each other.

Four Models of Mentoring:

• Traditional One-to-One - One adult is paired with one young person.
• Peer Mentoring - Peers provide support and advice to mentees.
• Group Mentoring - Matches one or more adults with a group of youth.
• E-mentoring – One (or more) youth is matched with a mentor and they communicate using e-mail (common in schools and workplaces).

Three Common Settings for Mentoring:

1. School
2. Community
3. Workplace

What Mentoring Should Be

• Two or more people giving up free time to spend with each other;
• Making your self available and interested about another person;
• A place where both people should feel okay about sharing their feelings, their fears, and their ideas without being put down;
• Individualized and youth-centered:
• Good for both the Mentor and Mentee; and,
• A relationship based on high expectations.

What Mentoring Shouldn’t Be

• Easy. It takes both people to make it work;
• A substitute for a parent;
• A confessional; mentors are obligated to report information told to them by the mentee if it’s dangerous, unsafe, or illegal;
• Taking advantage of someone else;
• Someone to give you all the answers; and
• Your personal punching bag.

Top Ten Truths about Mentoring

10.You can have different mentors for different things.

9. It is okay to disagree with your mentor.

8. Mentors and Mentees sometimes grow into friends or can also grow apart.

7. For a mentoring relation to work, both people have to be willing to spend time on it.

6. Mentors don’t always have all the answers.

5. Sometimes you can learn more from a mentor that’s different than you than one that likes all the same things.

4. Mentees have to be willing to teach mentors about them (i.e.; disability, culture, religion, dietary, etc.) if the mentor is unfamiliar.

3. Mentoring requires both people to be open and flexible. Not just in scheduling activities, but in being willing to learn new things.

2. Mentoring can be a great place to feel safe practicing things that you are nervous about.

1. Have fun.

Bonus Tip (from a Mentee)! Sometimes mentees want help thinking of answers for a problem, or other times they just may want someone to listen. It’s important that mentees and mentors are clear about what they want from each other at a given time to avoid confusion.

Mentoring 101 Handouts in Adobe PDF form

NCLD/Youth