The European Mentoring Summit is a biannual event that aims to connect people and projects from Europe and abroad who work in the mentoring sector in order to establish connections and share research and practice experiences. The 2020 European Mentoring Summit is the third edition after the summits in Berlin (2018) and Leeuwarden (2016). The event brings together professionals, practitioners, researchers, mentors, government, corporate partners and civic leaders representing the mentoring movement. The summit is therefore a great opportunity to strengthen your network, get to know the diversity of the mentoring scene and to gain and pass on new insights from research and action.
The 2020 Summit is the first to be held online and it is organised by the Spanish Mentoring Network Coordinadora de Mentoria Social in collaboration with the European Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring.
COORDINADORA MENTORIA SOCIAL
Coordinadora Mentoria Socialis a platform of organizations that develop mentoring projects aimed at groups in situations of vulnerability. Our mission is to put mentoring at the service of inclusion, social cohesion and equal opportunities for the most vulnerable groups. To do so, we work as a network to influence the public sphere and generate rigorous pedagogical knowledge, to extend quality mentoring in the field of social action. The MC Quality Seal is proof of it. We want to be a broad, diverse and representative network of social mentoring projects in the country, guaranteeing their quality and generating knowledge and innovation.
The MC Quality Seal
The MC Quality Seal arises from a work of systematization of quality indicators of mentoring projects and the experience and knowledge of the Coordinadora Mentoria Social. To develop and implement standards that accredit the methodological quality of mentoring projects for groups in situations of social vulnerability, this work has been inspired on the Elements of Effective Practice for MentoringTM and Approved Provider Standard (APS) and adapted to our local reality after 2 years of a testing pilot process. The MC Quality Seal has also been designed to favour a process to improve the design and management of mentoring projects.
EUROPEAN CENTER FOR EVIDENCE-BASED MENTORING
The European Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring was created within the 2016 European Mentoring Summit in Leeuwarden. Since then, the ECEB-Mentoring has been working to accomplish the agenda that was decided upon in 2016:
- Optimize high quality mentoring;
- Create a hub to connect for practitioners, innovators and researchers to collaborate;
- Function as a gravitation point for improving quality and positioning mentoring and networking;
- Develop a strong network of mentoring programmes and research institutions;
- Create a source where we can find validated knowledge and an overview of mentoring programmes in Europe;
- Foster caring relationships through research-based quality;
- Promote research and make stories of mentoring more powerful in Europe;
- Facilitate knowledge sharing to improve mentoring practices across the lifespan;
- Connect the effects and impact of mentoring to the EU 2020 goals.
- Conduct rigorous research on mentoring programmes and practices, in order to improve our understanding of when, why, and for whom mentoring does (not) work;
- Improve the translation of evidence into programme, practice, and policy;
- Use multidisciplinary and multilevel research approach.
The Center is dedicated to appraising and using the evidence we have, and to conducting rigorous and practice-oriented research on mentoring programmes. In doing so, we seek to advance the production, dissemination, and uptake of evidence-based practices in ways that improve the effectiveness of mentoring and, ultimately, create stronger, more enduring mentoring relationships. The ECEB-Mentoring has also developed a strong collaborative relationship with the MENTOR / UMB Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring, based at the University of Massachusetts.
STEERING COMMITTEE
From left to the right, Alba Pi, Laura Cardús, Nerea Arechaga and Szilvia Simon form the Steering Commitee of the 2020 European Mentoring Summit.
Alba Pi works at Punt de Referència as a mentoring coordinator, an association that works with foster care, offering support to young people currently in foster care, and those in the process of moving from foster care to independent living. The association’s mission is to promote emancipation. Alba holds a degree in Political Science and Social Work awarded by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Alba coordinates a project called Atenea, focused on improving the quality of education in youth. Alba is an experienced mentoring trainer, responsible for the international area of Punt de Referència. She is fascinated by how mentoring and bonds of trust can smooth the path to emancipation.
Laura Cardús is an educator and social anthropologist. She has been working as a mentoring scheme manager since 2015 in AFEV in its delegation in Barcelona, Spain (http://entandem.cat). AFEV is an organization originated in France and also set in Spain, that promotes more than 7000 mentoring matches among university students and children and teenagers from disadvantadged background every year. Laura is also member of the training commission of Coordinadora de Mentoria Social, and is especially focused in training and giving support to mentors as a means to guarantee quality in mentoring relationships. She is also interested in research and evidence based practices in education.
Nerea Arechaga works at Fundació Servei Solidari, an organization that aims to promote autonomy and full citizenship of young people and adults at risk of social exclusion. Nerea is a social psichologist and family therapist, and she has been working at the Nightingale Project in Barcelona for 5 years. She is passionate about the emotional and social accompaniment of young people.
Szilvia Simon is community manager of the European Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring, shaping the network of mentoring practitioners and researchers in Europe. In collaboration with experts, she organises events of knowledge exchange, promotes the uptake of research results and develops a quality system of mentoring. Through bringing powerful stories, she wishes to improve our understanding of when, why, and for whom mentoring works. Her mentoring expertise is rooted in MentorProgramma Friesland: a programme in the North of the Netherlands for VET and HEI students since 1997. She has been part of the operational team since the start, matching people and learning goals, bridging cultures, generations and organisations.