The Role of a Mentor
Mentors’ roles fall into four categories:
It is common to hear the mentor described as:
Any and all of the following are important activities that mentors provide in the lives of their students:
Keeping students in school; helping them graduate from school; evaluating educational choices; directing them to educational resources.
Pointing out, bringing to attention, demonstrating, and explaining your own actions and values that offer the student the best chances for success and happiness; helping students see and strive for broader horizons and possibilities than they may see in their present environments.
Many students do not receive enough from the adults in their lives; mentors can fill in these empty spaces with dependable, sincere, and consistent attention and concern.
A commitment made to a student for a meeting together, an activity, or an appointment should be a mentor’s first priority, barring emergencies. This consistent accountability has several benefits:
The other adults in the young person’s life may not have the time, interest, or ability to listen, or they may be judgmental. Mentors can encourage young people to talk about their fears, dreams, and concerns. Staying neutral and not judging, but, rather, sharing your own values, is important in listening. Remember, a mentor may be the ONLY adult in a student’s life who listens.
WHAT MENTORS ARE NOT
There is no expectation that volunteer participants in mentoring programs will take on the roles of PARENT, professional COUNSELOR, or SOCIAL WORKER. But some of their traits will also be a part of the mentor’s role:
Listening, nurturing, supporting, advising.
Through the mentors’ sustained caring, interest, and acceptance, students may begin to think of themselves as worthy of this attention. They may apply this new, stronger sense of self-confidence to other relationships and experiences.
Mentoring is not a PANACEA for all the problems and deficiencies facing students and their families. THE ESSENCE OF MENTORING IS THE SUSTAINED HUMAN RELATIONSHIP. Mentor programs can enhance the efficacy of this relationship by providing support activities and opportunities for development of social skills of the students through group activities.