CLEARING THE HURDLES : 1 Prepared & Presented By: Renata Cobbs Fletcher Consultant, M.H. West & Co. Persistently Dangerous Schools Grantee Conference September 20-21, 2011 PSD MENTORING

PURPOSE OF WORKSHOP 2 To provide PSD grantees with practical applications and strategies for successfully creating or revising a life coaching (mentoring) program for the PSD project To provide an opportunity for best practice exchange and brainstorming on successes and challenges

ICE BREAKER Who was/is the most important mentor in your life? Why? 3

WHY MENTORING IN PSD?  Better academic performance for students  Better school attendance for students  Decreased likelihood of drug and/or alcohol use  Decreased violent behavior in students  Stronger likelihood of students attending college 4

DEFINING MENTORING: WHAT IS IT?  A relationship between a youth and a caring adult that supports the youth in overcoming barriers and reaching his or her full potential academically and socially 5

EXERCISE: GROUP ACTIVITY & REPORT OUT  Accomplishments  Disappointments  How best practice-saturated are your current approaches (exercises)?  What should continue?  What should stop?  What should start? 6

REFINING/EXPANDING THE PSD MENTORING MODEL  Group  One-to-One  Service-based mentoring  Career-based mentoring 7

1:1 MENTORING  Must meet consistently (4 hours/month) – participant’s choice  Various activities – participant’s/mentee’s choice  Informal conversations 8

1:1 ADVANTAGES  Deeper, more meaningful relationships  More flexibility with meeting times and locations  Time and transportation  Other advantages? 9

1:1 CHALLENGES  Resistance by students (hierarchy)  Demanding for programs – intensive recruitment, training, supervision of mentors  Challenging/off-putting for potential mentors  Harder to retain mentors/bigger feelings of mentor failure  Other challenges? 10

GROUP MENTORING  Must meet consistently as a group – ideally the same group – same time and place (most of the time)  Longer sessions  More structured – often topic driven, determined by mentors and students  Sometimes curriculum driven 11

GROUP MENTORING: ADVANTAGES  Fewer mentors required  Less intensive recruitment  Less demanding on staff time  Potentially more appealing to students 12

GROUP MENTORING: ADVANTAGES  Relationships and support not always as strong  Could foster feelings of academic “institutionalization”  Less commitment from life coaches and students – easier to rationalize not showing up  Other advantages? 13

GROUP MENTORING: CHALLENGES  Groups can change configurations and relationships can be lost  If groups are too large, relationships can be lost  Curriculum and facilitation can end up being more like a class  Other challenges? 14

COMBINATION: GROUP + 1:1  Group focus with supplementary and pre- matched 1:1  Group focus with supplementary and “naturally evolving”, spontaneous 1:1  1:1 Focus with supplementary group meetings (occasional) 15

COMBINATION: GROUP + 1:1: ADVANTAGES  Best of both worlds  Offsets challenges of both models  Other advantages? 16

COMBINATION: GROUP + 1:1: CHALLENGES  Any challenges? 17

SERVICE-BASED MENTORING  Same best practice guidelines as other types of mentoring  Activity-driven  Can be completed as 1:1 or group mentoring 18

SERVICE-BASED MENTORING: ADVANTAGES  Students gain sense of “giving back”  Other advantages? 19

SERVICE-BASED MENTORING: CHALLENGES  May be perceived as work by students  Other challenges? 20

CAREER-BASED MENTORING: ADVANTAGES  Exposure for students to a range of career opportunities  Exposure for students to work environments and cultures 21

CAREER-BASED MENTORING: CHALLENGES  May be intimidating/uncomfortable to some students to be in workplace environments  May not be adequate opportunities to match students with their priority interest 22

TEAM EXERCISE  Write a mission statement for the mentoring component of your PSD program (main purpose of mentoring program) 23

WHAT MAKES A GOOD MENTOR?  A nonjudgmental attitude  Good listening skills  An ability to help participants stay focused on the big picture  A willingness to offer guidance, support and assistance with personal and school-related challenges  An ability to help students problem-solve and think about the choices they can make 24

RECRUITING, MATCHING & RETAINING  Case study (Susie Mentor) 25

CLOSING  Q&A  True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." ~ Arthur Ashe 26