Training Mentors to support young people on King’s Trust programmes

The aim of the mentoring programme is to support and drive change to mentoring and provide wider support to young people at King’s Trust. The mentor development is aimed at existing and new mentors and will create a ‘toolkit’ for taking the young person on the journey.

The programme utilises a range of interventions to ensure that mentors gain a full understanding of mentoring skills, knowledge, requirements and responsibilities and drive this change to mentoring PT are looking for. The programme includes:

• Self-assessment – ‘is becoming a mentor right for me?’
• Webinar providing an overview of mentoring and what it means to be a mentor
• Training workshops
• Supervisions
• Drop in ‘clinics’
• Option of becoming Accredited

The programme provides opportunities for mentors to gain knowledge and awareness about the programme, and what mentoring is, and what it is not! Mentors are given the opportunity to practice and develop their mentoring skills, giving them the confidence, knowledge and awareness to successfully mentor young people. To reinforce the learning, mentors are asked to self-reflect, attend supervisions and ‘drop-in’ sessions.

Quality Assurance

As part of the quality assurance process for mentors, there is an assessment stage to allow mentors to be accredited if they so wish. This involves being observed conducting a mentoring session, which they are then provided feedback on and submit self-reflection journals.

Mentors who have undertaken the Accreditation agree that it has helped them improve their mentoring skills, becoming more self-aware through self-reflection and feedback. This has given them reassurance and greater confidence when mentoring young people. The Accreditation has also provided them with recognition of their mentoring with the King’s Trust and credibility as a mentor.

As part of the programme there is a supervision element, small groups of Mentors are given the opportunity to attend an online supervision meeting, these happen on a quarterly basis, where they will be given the space and time to discuss their mentoring experience and seek support from other mentors and the Supervisor. At this point any issues can be addressed and learning take place.

Mentor Supervision has three key functions:

1. Quality Assurance – ensuring that the mentors work is professional, ethical and operating within the boundaries & contract of the King’s Trust agreement with young people
2. Educative – enables the mentor to become an increasingly skilled mentor by learning and sharing experiences with fellow mentors and attending regular supervisions to top up their skills
3. Restorative – to support, champion, inspire and challenge the mentor to do their best by the mentees

Support provided

Approximately every 6-8 weeks, a drop-in online session is provided when mentors can attend to check-in as to how they are getting on with their mentoring, seek support from other mentors and ask any questions. These are delivered by volunteer mentors.

Within the project, mentor supervision and ‘drop in’ clinics have been a formal and less formal way of assuring the quality of the mentoring taking place with young people on this programme.

• It has been successful in identifying areas for improvements within the process of successfully placing young people in work
• Enabled the upskilling of mentors, assuring the commitment of the mentors to the project and mentors have felt more supported
• It has assisted in the inclusion of mentors in the wider project through better communication with their PT executive & via the clinics and supervision sessions.
• It has reduced the loneliness felt by some mentors when working with young people & the feeling of being out their depth when faced with a young person with mental health or other personally challenging issues
• It allows, via the supervision sessions, the sharing of experiences to ‘normalise’ some of these experiences and the sharing of expertise amongst the mentors
• Ultimately the mentoring on this programme is not only improved by supervision and drop-in sessions but the young people benefit from a more skilled and prepared mentor to support them in a way that works for them and achieves the Princes Trust goals in this project around placing work ready young people

Creation of a Mentor Database

This is a database of mentors that are willing to share their expertise with other mentors to benefit mentees, this could be a 1-off session with a mentee around a specific area, sharing expertise in a particular field, support other mentors. As a mentor, it is great to know that there is the expertise and experience in the group that you can tap into.

What the Mentors are saying…

“Feedback for other mentors: If you have any reservations about completing the Accreditation, then I can share that from my experience, it was not as daunting as I thought it might be. It was actually very useful. In particular, watching myself back on a recorded mentee session and self-assessing was probably the most valuable thing I have done for a while. I also found the training and subsequent assessment to be very complimentary to my coaching work and CPD”.

Mike S.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity, for me it was a huge bonus to achieve the certificate at the same time as doing what I love doing and have signed up for. Thanks to all the team involved in the process and the work you have all put in too. In terms of feedback… it really couldn’t have been easier and to have the opportunity to both reflect, get feedback on and enhance my own practice is invaluable and everyone really should take this option up if it is presented to them!”

Kerry F.

“The mentor training was good in my view and together with supplementary materials such as the handbook and a few textbooks (bought myself) it certainly positioned me for the role”

Mel. G

“As a qualified coach I wanted to expand my knowledge and experience working with and mentoring young people. The training programme was really helpful as it helped me to think about how I use my coaching skills in a mentoring space, and with young people. The training I had did feel a little disjointed (times and dates and the order I ended up doing the inputs in) but I think this was down to the challenges covid presented, and my availability around a full time job. I have now completed one mentoring relationship and started another and have found that the support I get from the network is awesome and extremely valuable. Providing time for mentors to meet and discuss issues, bounce ideas off each other and to provide a space for supervision has really helped me build confidence in my skills. Initially I felt a little isolated as a mentor, as I sit on the border of 2 regions. Again I know Covid has impacted on this. Being able to join the sessions whilst mentoring elsewhere has really kept me engaged as a mentor and wanting to do more!!! I love the energy in these drop ins and in supervision, from passionate mentors who are so committed to helping young people, it is inspiring! I have learnt so much from others and thought about different ways to use that knowledge and apply it in my mentoring. I would encourage all mentors to participate in these sessions, we all bring different skills and knowledge to PT and being able to tap into this is great!! I feel part of a team and well supported!!! A big thank you to Diane and Fiona for making this happen, and for giving their time to run these sessions”. 

Jenny R.

“I haven’t participated in the whole programme but I have sampled the training sessions, supervision and drop ins. All conducted with extreme professionalism and all were certainly helpful in developing my skills in mentoring young people. Participants have been encouraged to engage fully and the sharing of knowledge and experience has been at a very high level”.

BJ