In the next 4-part series of articles, Clarice will touch on the fundamentals of the mentor program at 180th. We begin by highlighting the roles of the mentor and what our mentors aim to achieve.
Roles and aims of our mentors
Five years ago when there were only a dozen of us in the crew, we started with 2 mentors: our head advisor, Scouter John Chow, and President at the time, Kevin Li. John and Kevin had deep discussions with rover scouts who seemingly had the resources but were struggling to achieve their goals. They probed to understand deeper set barriers to help rover scouts unlock and reach their full potential, and motivated each person to create their own personal development plans (PDPs).
Today, our mentor team has expanded to 26 alumni advisors and senior rovers to support a crew of over 100 members. Every rover scout is paired with a mentor. We follow an annual cycle, use the Personal Development Plan process that we have developed over the years, and conduct ongoing mentor training to hone our skills. All of these topics will be covered separately in detail in future articles!
Despite growing from a handful to 100, the fundamentals of our mentoring program have not changed:
Our mentors play four important roles to their mentees:
We motivate our mentees to step out of their comfort zone and to set challenging goals.
We support our mentees by showing that we genuinely care for their development and are there for them when they need us.
We are a resource to our mentees through providing referrals, suggesting interesting books to read, new things to try, etc.
We coach our mentees as they encounter challenges through discussing possible approaches and strategies and presenting different perspectives.
Our mentors aim to help mentees:
- Increase self-understanding
- Build self-confidence
- Learn how to set challenging SMART goals
- Create action plans to achieve their goals
- Identify challenges & how to overcome them
- Gain a wider perspective
- Improve critical thinking skills
- Develop a healthy outlook on life
- Develop time management and prioritization skills
In addition to these fundamental roles and aims of mentoring, we also stand by a holistic approach to development, adhere to the principles of SMART goal setting, and hold our mentees accountable to their commitments. We will elaborate on each of these topics in the next three articles, so stay tuned!
2 replies on “The Pillars of Mentoring at 180th (Part 1)”
Thanks for this interesting post. PCC Rovers applies a very nice approach towards mentoring.
As someone who has experienced being both a mentor and a mentee in the past, I must admit a good mentor can help mentees a lot in achieving their goals, and gaining more self-confidence.