Developing a mentoring programme

Transcription

1 Developing a mentoring programme A college experience and recommendations South West Region Skills and Employer Responsiveness (SER) programme Page 1 of 6

2 A college experience and recommendations This resource describes the experiences and recommendations of a college implementing effective mentoring schemes. It was produced for LSIS by Cirencester College funded by the Skills and Employer Responsiveness (SER) programme in the South West. Aims The aims of this resource are to: provide individuals and organisations with the skills, knowledge and confidence to set up an effective mentoring programme in their own setting; understand the role of a mentor in the personal development of a student or member of staff; share examples of current good practice models; provide a framework for the development of an effective mentoring programme customised to the needs of the individual institution. Sector relevance This case study is aimed at academic and support staff in training provider organisations. It should be of particular interest to all staff in further education colleges, sixth form colleges and private work-based learning providers with a responsibility for, or interest in learner development/enrichment activities, employability or employer engagement. Summary This resource is designed to enable you to understand the benefits of mentoring and how to develop and create a mentoring programme for students and/or staff. It is based on the practices adapted from the Career Academies UK model by Cirencester College and focuses on how to identify and target potential mentors from local and national businesses. It will help you to assess the skills and suitability of mentors through interview and demonstrate how to approach matching students with enlisted mentors, and how to monitor and capture data regarding the progress of the mentor mentee relationship. Safeguarding children issues are addressed, discussed and explained, supporting the use of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) for checking mentors before student matching. Challenges The ability to set up and run an effective mentoring scheme relies heavily on strong administrative support and communication with mentors. This ensures that any issues are attended to swiftly to minimise negative impact. Good communication improves mentor retention and therefore reduces costs, such as recruitment resources and CRB checking. It would be wise to reflect this level of support and the importance of mentor retention in your implementation plan. If your mentoring strategy is to be successfully customised to the needs of your institution, learners and locality, you will need to involve an appropriate range of contributors: these might include senior management, business development staff, subject lecturers and tutors, administration staff, friendly employers, careers staff and, of course, learners! Page 2 of 6

3 Activity The first task is to articulate clearly what you already understand by the terms mentor and mentoring, based on your existing experiences if any. Your needs analysis should include the following considerations: Page 3 of 6 What is mentoring? Seek to uncover the varying perceptions and misconceptions of mentoring. Why offer mentoring at all? Who is it aimed at? What are the benefits and for whom? Who is your audience, eg internal staff, students, external clients and those not in education, employment or training, etc? What/who makes a suitable mentor? There is not a profile of an ideal mentor. We have discovered that our best mentors do not come from obvious quarters and having a pool of mentors from differing backgrounds works best as the needs of each of your mentees will be varied. The personal characteristics identified below provide useful criteria to help identify people with the right skills to become a mentor. What skills does a mentor need to possess? o communicates high expectations; o is a good listener; o is understanding and not judgemental; o helps young people bring out strengths that are already there; o offers encouragement without assuming responsibility for the results. What, if anything, does the mentor expect in return? o on a personal level ensure their participation is altruistic; o if representing a company, the return may be personal development/supervisory skills but ultimately they have to want to help make a difference. What do you expect the benefits of mentoring to be and how would you measure them? o Benefits for students can include personal development, harnessing their strengths and overcoming their weaknesses, help with networking, access to business, help with coursework, cv writing, university applications/personal statement, work experience opportunities, timekeeping and communication, job applications, understanding of the world of work and confidence building, although it is a difficult thing to measure quantitatively. o For Cirencester College, mentoring has been a very successful initial introduction to key organisations. It requires a relatively low level of commitment from employers which, if successful, leads to a deeper partnership where the skills and value an employer can offer students in other areas increase significantly. o For the employer, mentoring can offer staff development and promotional opportunities. How to attract suitable mentors to the programme: o through existing relationships with businesses (this could be promoted by the employer as a company-wide participation scheme, and linked to staff development through HR processes); o recommendations from existing mentors;

4 o word of mouth. Interviewing and selection for purpose, safeguarding issues and references: o interview all prospective candidates to determine eligibility o every mentor should be CRB checked; o strict guidelines provided on mentor/mentee meeting locations and behaviours. Mentor information sessions and mentor training (where necessary): o We have found these sessions, before commitment, to be essential whether done in a group at the college, individually or in a group within a particular organisation. Clearly, setting realistic expectations of what mentoring will be like the highlights and the pitfalls will save a lot of time and expense in the longer term. o Ongoing support is provided so that the mentor never feels that they doing this alone and constant communication with the mentor/mentee reduces the incidence of the relationship failing. Matching mentors with participating students o Both mentors and mentees are required to complete an application form that identifies the criteria as a part of the basis for matching; gender, hobbies, age, location, logistics (ability to travel), current and past work experience. o Close matching helps retention as common interests help facilitate communication in the early stages of the relationship. o Mentoring for our students is not compulsory. Students request to be considered for mentoring and, if they are successful, there are high expectations that they remain committed throughout their time at college. Setting and managing mentor and mentee expectations through presentations and ice-breaker sessions o Information needs to include the frequency, style and content of mentoring meetings, suggested venues and meeting times as well as fundamental do and don ts to ensure the safeguarding of all individuals involved. Ongoing management of the mentor/mentee relationship o Although the mentor/mentee relationship should be confidential, it also needs to be closely monitored in terms of support and communication. Every six weeks the mentors are ed for feedback to ensure they feel the meetings are progressing well and in a timely fashion. If they are having difficulties with their mentee (almost always due to communication issues) this is often the catalyst to make them mention that they haven t met up for a while, or that perhaps a few meetings have been missed and we then intervene to ensure that the students are not concerned about the relationship in any way. o All communication is noted and a brief summary is held on a database. o Once a year we ask mentors for feedback on how well they believe the mentoring programme is going. All feedback is analysed and where necessary, amendments to our procedures are made. Mentor retention o Recruiting mentors is costly in terms of time and CRB checking, etc. It is therefore strongly recommended that retention of existing mentors is a priority. This in itself is a time-consuming exercise, but one that Page 4 of 6

5 should form an essential part of your strategy and implementation plans. o In our experience, mentors who have had a positive experience with the college (even if the student relationship has waned) will be keen to mentor again and in several cases will mentor more than one student. o Be very clear from the outset what they should expect from the mentoring relationship to avoid the time and cost of recruiting a mentor who finds the communication with the student frustrating and consequently leaves the programme. o A couple of times a year we offer our mentors the opportunity to come in for a mentor get-together where they can meet and network with other mentors and share experiences. We have found that sharing the mentoring experience helps the mentor set realistic expectations of themselves and their mentees. By considering each of the bullet points above with regard to your own organisation you should be able to identify the elements essential in developing an effective mentoring strategy and subsequent implementation plan. Depending on the exact nature of your mentoring programme you may also wish to consider the following. How can you make this a win win relationship for both your institution and the company that the mentor may represent? For example, mentoring can be used as an effective form of supervisory/managerial staff development. How can you develop positive stories for effective marketing and public relations material for both parties? For example, successful mentoring stories have been used to promote courses, enrichment and progression in the Cirencester College prospectus Impact To understand the impact that your mentoring programme has on your learners, staff organisation and/or employer relationships you need to determine your own criteria for measurement. These may include, for example, an increase in learner retention, progression into employment, a more meaningful and strategic relationship with local employers, staff development opportunities (within employer or own institution), better student recruitment onto courses that demonstrate these positive outcomes, marketing and public relation stories and enhanced reputation. The role of the mentor and some specific areas where a mentor can provide essential support and or guidance are probably best summed up below by quotes from one of our long-standing supporters and a current student. Page 5 of 6

6 I have now been part of the mentoring programme at Cirencester College for over three years and have worked with five students in total. The topics and issues we discuss in our meetings (normally over a cup of coffee in town) are many and varied, and I tend to let the student take the lead in setting the direction of the conversation. University choices, career decisions, time management and work experience are just some of the issues that are discussed. I ve helped sharpen up written CVs and personal statements, and done dry runs through simulated interviews, advising on techniques of body language, eye contact and projecting self-confidence. The enthusiasm and energy of the students is often impressive after all they have pro-actively chosen to take part in the programme and the time commitment on my part is really very modest Jeremy Lodwick, Investment Banker There are so many benefits to being part of the academies, one being that you get an industry expert to mentor you while you are on the course. Oli Ashforth-Shaw, Career Academy student at Cirencester College Useful links Career Academies UK: A mentoring video in the Watch our Videos section provides an insight into mentoring from both students and employers perspectives. Further commentary and case study information are available by clicking on the student, employer, schools or parent tabs. Cirencester College: The Career Academies section gives access to information on how we operate the Career Academy model within which mentoring is an integral part. Further resources that identify the use of mentoring within educational settings and research materials can be accessed via the LSIS Excellence Gateway, specifically: Mentoring in Education: The Mentor as Critical Friend Mentoring and Coaching for Professionals: A Study of the Research Contact information If you would like further information please contact Richard Ashwood, Cirencester College (rxa@cirencester.ac.uk) Page 6 of 6