Volunteering as a mentor has a positive impact, not only for the women who participate in our programme, but also diversifies your employees’ skill sets and provides them with meaningful and fulfilling interactions. As a mentor, you would work with one of our participants for 6 months.
Mentors have to date included the likes of a high court judge, a banker, TV presenter, photo journalist, theatre producer, global PR exec from a large bank, designer-maker, performance poet, the creative director of a leading international arts venue, and a broadcast journalist.
As a mentor with YMI, you’re supported with:
An interactive workshop to create a clear structure and a personal vision of how you personally wish to use mentoring.
Led by a gestalt psychologist, the workshop content includes:
- Tips for that first meeting
- The power of process over content
- Breakdowns & breakthroughs
- Giving and receiving feedback
- The benefits of reflexive practice
- Traditional mentoring / relational mentoring
- Boundaries & ethics in mentoring
- The role of the mentor / mentee
- Boundary issues
1-1 coaching
This professional support is offered to mentors over the phone or via Skype twice over the course of the 6 months. The offer is open to mentors who are experiencing any blocks with their mentees, and those who need help to think through an action or devise a solution.
Ongoing support and co-ordination from our Programmes Manager
We take pride in pairing our mentor matches well from the start and ensure that each mentor is fully supported across the 6-months. We work closely with mentors to share information about their mentees and organise catch-ups to discuss any particular achievements or queries.
We know that mentoring isn’t just about one-way change – as much as mentees change, so do mentors. A mentor from a previous programme has said of the process:
“It helped me in having more awareness of what I am good at and where I need to improve. When you mentor someone you need to ask questions and then answer them about yourselves first, which we do not always necessarily do enough. Mentoring teaches you to be flexible, as you have to adapt to the unpredictable circumstances of the person you’re trying to help. You make lots of discoveries about yourself and it doesn’t require too much time . . . For professionals who spend most of their life in the same environment, it’s a great way of opening up a world outside the office – you may get addicted!”
