Input provided by Serkan Tezkel, Social Entrepreneur and Mentor Coach from Germany

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from one of our guests who joined the EMS 2022 and has provided inputs on the workshops he attended throughout the three-day summit. For this blog post, he has summarised the workshop session Quality in Peer Mentoring Projects in the times of pandemic and beyond.

Organisation: KWB, DE

Facilitator/s: Dr. Alexei Medvedev

We have focused primarily on the activities of school mentors and the Koordinierungsstelle Weiterbildung und Beschäftigung e. V. (KWB)

“School Mentors – Hand in Hand for Strong Schools” is a joint project in which KWB and other partners support Hamburg schools in setting up their own mentoring program. To do this, KWB trains students, parents and external volunteers to become school mentors. So far, they have worked with about 40 Hamburg schools. KWB focuses on qualifying children, families, volunteers and project coordinators with their training and development activities.

Teachers are trained and coached to become school mentor coordinators. The school mentors support their mentees in everyday school life, learning or reading.

During the pandemic, they used a reflection model. It helped them identify or improve opportunities for action. This model includes three questions to answer: What? What then? What now? With this model, they were able to pursue their mentoring activities with new perspectives.

In a discussion section, we tried to implement this model. In small groups, we focused on improving different perspectives of our mentoring programs. Participants were productive in developing new perspectives for their mentoring programs.

Input provided by Serkan Tezkel, Social Entrepreneur and Mentor Coach from Germany

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from one of our guests who joined the EMS 2022 and has provided inputs on the workshops he attended throughout the three-day summit. For this blog post, he has summarised the workshop session Creative approaches to building an evolving alumni engagement strategy rooted in the entrepreneurial mindset and mentorship.

Organisation: Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation University of Connecticut, USA

Facilitator/s: Julie Gehring

In this workshop, we focused on the University of Connecticut’s Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s NETWERX model, which has three main components: Mentees, i.e., first- and second-year students; Mentors, i.e., alumni who have graduated in the last 10 to 15 years; and 4+1 thirty-minute sessions every two weeks for two months. Involving alumni as mentors brings several benefits that were clearly highlighted during the workshop.

– Easier access to recruitment.

– Mentors have a similar background to mentees

– Alumni want to give something back

– Brand awareness comes to the forefront through the alumni network

– Capacity building becomes easier with the help of various opportunities

– Partnerships for mentors and mentees in the form of internships and fellowship opportunities

This was what and why part of the workshop. We then focused on the “how” part of the NETWERX model. Through targeted e-newsletters, supportive virtual events for alumni to add value, highlighting active mentors, and Werth Coffee Talks where special guests are invited to inspire alumni. All activities are coordinated by students and take place on Mondays and Wednesdays beginning at 2:00 pm. They are also published as podcasts. They have about 10 speakers per month.

Social media promotion is the main tool of the NETWERX model.

The program identifies the group of unemployed students who have almost completed their studies, to get them out of their difficult situation by understanding their needs and providing them with additional training.

In summary, the NETWERX model applied in value combines an entrepreneurial mindset and mentoring activities that lead to a growing mindset and environment for all participants.

In the discussion part, the main question was “How can we find a balance between social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial mindset, and mentoring programs in Europe?”. We were able to develop some options and perspectives related to this question. It is inevitable that more social entrepreneurship will emerge to build sustainable programs. The combination of entrepreneurship, the cultural aspect of mentoring programs and government regulations can be successful if we really want such a balance to be achieved soon in the design and development of new mentoring programs and projects. Innovation in the social economy can bring new perspectives. Mindset development could also be considered innovation if it brings new solutions to social problems.

Input provided by Serkan Tezkel, Social Entrepreneur and Mentor Coach from Germany

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from one of our guests who joined the EMS 2022 and has provided inputs on the workshops he attended throughout the three-day summit. For this blog post, he has summarised the workshop session Applying the lens of Social Movements to Coaching and mentoring

Organisation: Oxford Brookes University, UK

Facilitator/s: Dr. Judie Gannon

Dr. Judie Gannon offered us an alternative to improve a sustainable mentoring program based on the foundations of social movements. In our brief and productive journey during this work, we found that social movements are a valuable source of networks to initiate mentoring programs for specific and disadvantaged segments of society.

Social movements are different forms of networks, Gannon said. If they share a common concern, learn how to address that concern, and manage to exchange ideas regularly, they can bring new perspectives. They can easily manage complex structures in an informal way. They are more likely to reach a particular group of disadvantaged people or a particular minority group.

She made it clear that for an effective mentoring program and its implementation, we need three P’s: Purpose, Practical Implementation, and People. In this context, we should answer the questions “What is our program about?”, “What practical actions can, and should we take?”, and “How do we create clear identifications and relationships with the group we want to mentor and coach?” under the heading of “people”.

The challenge is sustainability. She gave some tips on how to meet this challenge, based on social movements. Different forms of networks that have different histories, networks of causes that include like-minded people, movements that focus on change to effectively recruit mentors, and communities of practice are four ideas that were presented during this workshop.

Discussions focused on different aspects of social movements and mentoring. First, we tried to answer how we can bring together different cultures with similar stories and goals to develop a sustainable mentoring program for immigrant youth.

It was made clear that if we are stuck in the question of “Where are we now?” and “Where do we want to go?” we should focus on the participants to foster healthy relationships.

When asked about the skills needed for mentoring and coaching, Dr. Judie Gannon emphasized that we need to be very context-specific in applying skills because they are so similar. Mentors coach in part and coaches mentor in part, Dr. Gannon responded.

Input provided by Serkan Tezkel, Social Entrepreneur and Mentor Coach from Germany

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from one of our guests who joined the EMS 2022 and has provided inputs on the workshops he attended throughout the three-day summit. For this blog post, he has summarised the workshop session Intercultural Aspects and Diversity in Schools.

Organisation: KWB, DE

Facilitator/s: Jörg Belden

After a short introduction, we focused on the main reason for intercultural problems in schools, which is related to a different understanding of education in schools in different cultures. There are mainly two common understandings of school systems. In Western schools, parents play an important role between school and child, which is called triangular cooperation. In Eastern school systems, families are usually not part of this cooperation.

There is no good or bad system. It is important for those involved in a school system to be aware of this cross-cultural difference. We should also be aware that migrants do not come here for war or political reasons, but for their children and their safety.

By applying the cooperation triangle, the relationship between school, child, and family can be established in a healthy way with the help of school mentors who help refugee and migrant families maintain a connection and interaction with the school.

Parent mentors who come from the heart and know how to solve problems in school are inevitable considering their contribution to the school system.

The speaker then focused on three topics: Swimming lessons, sex education, and interfaith and intercultural challenges. In practice, there was only one agenda, which is the essential component of any cultural challenge: communication.

The following suggestions were highlighted in the discussion section.

– Take some time and listen carefully.

– You should convey the following message: We are trying to find a solution for your child. We are here to hear your reality because your reality is the solution.

– Listen to them carefully because most ideas that lead to solutions come from families.

– Tell them that swimming is fun

– Tell them about the danger of death if they don’t know how to swim.

– It would be good to talk about the child’s swimwear before swimming lessons and whether they wear special swimwear.

Organisation: MentorProgramma Friesland, NL

Facilitator/s: Kamilla Górczynska & Hanane Azarzar

Input provided by Berenika Kusová & Markéta Michalcová, students in BA Humanities students at Charles University

Edited by Erika Irabor & Mattia Troiano

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from two international students who joined the EMS 2022 and have provided inputs on the workshops they have attended throughout the three-day summit. The following paragraphs are testimonials from two Czech bachelor’s students followed by a summary of the workshop sessions they attended. For this blog post, they have summarised the workshop session the voice of the mentees. After the summary, the two students shared their personal perspectives on how the workshop they had the chance to follow.

MentorProgramma Friesland is one of  Mentoring Europe’s partner organisations.The programme aims at helping students in vocation secondary (MBO) and higher education (HBO) through mentoring. Mentees are matched with mentors coming from different backgrounds. These mentors can very often be recent graduates who are now seeking to help others to successfully finish their studies. However, they can also be working professionals and older role models. Students are supported and empowered by their mentors who help them make choices and set goals in life.

The workshop MentorProgramma Friesland hosted at the EMS 2022 introduced us to the mentees’ perspectives on how they define successful mentoring relationships. The primary question asked during the workshop moment was:

What do students find most meaningful in a mentoring relationship?

During the first round, each group was given cards with words such as self-confidence, motivation, acceptance, guidance, safety, role model, fun, love, and independence aiming at opening the floor for discussions on what the students find most meaningful in mentoring relationships. The cards reflected key terms on what students generally find meaningful in mentoring relationships. The challenge was to select the top five most meaningful words based on the students perspective. Once the first activity was over all groups presented and explained their findings.

In the next round, new groups were formed this time with both the students and participants.

Together they discussed the lists from the students previously made and moved on to create new lists. The new list included the perspectives of both parties – the students and the participants. Again, the results were presented in front of the whole group. In the end we dived deeper into the meanings of the words on the cards. Interestingly, each person defined the words differently. For example safety between a mentor and mentee can mean a safe space but it can also mean something completely different.

All of these insights were reflected in the final round along with some personal stories about mentors and mentees. The workshop showed and embraced that mentees have a story to tell and that it is crucial to hear what they are saying. 

What surprised us the most was the debate on what the students find most meaningful in mentoring and what instead adults think young people find most meaningful in mentoring, because it is very valuable for me to realise what my fellow students have to say. Since everyone has a different interpretation of the different words and their meaning, it was very interesting to find out about how each of the participants revealed their subjective thoughts on the different words the cards offered. I found this workshop very touching because of the personal-sharing character required from the audience as well as the organiser. And I think this was a reminder of how important mentoring is for everyone on a personal level. It was a clear message on how mentoring enhances people’s lives!

Input provided by Berenika Kusová & Markéta Michalcová, students in BA Humanities students at Charles University

Edited by Erika Irabor & Mattia Troiano

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from two international students who joined the EMS 2022 and have provided inputs on the workshops they have attended throughout the three-day summit. The following paragraphs are testimonials from two Czech bachelor’s students followed by a summary of the workshop sessions they attended. For this blog post, they have summarised the workshop session provided by the International Women Centre. After the summary, the two students shared their personal perspectives on how the workshop they had the chance to follow.

Organisation: The International Women Centre, NL

Facilitators: Marlies Pfann & Peter van Deursen

The International Women’s Centre (IVC) stands for the empowerment of humans towards social self-reliance and financial independence.

Most of the women coming in touch with IVC are immigrants. They struggle at different levels. Some are job seekers who cannot find work placements due to invalid documentation, others have language difficulties and find it more challenging to adapt to the new cultures. Coming from a non-EU country can make the integration process a socially but also personally challenging experience that not all newcomers can master successfully.

And this is where IVC comes into play. The programme helps women to find jobs that suit their abilities and talents as many refugees and immigrants have problems getting work in the Netherlands at the level they are trained for.

Solutions to the stated problems are provided by the International Women’s Center through the so-called IVC Participation Ladder Model. It provides participants with a follow-up system, Pré-VPL, and VPL training. The IVC Participation Ladder Model is a scientifically validated framework with European recognition. It focuses on climbing the ladder, i.e. personal growth, self-development, and becoming more powerful. During the Pré VPL and VPL training, participants learn how to rely on each other to carry out assignments, expand their network, and use their newly-made contacts to realise their dream and set their own goals and a clearer path towards their achievement.

The IVC programme organises activities and projects where migrant women also learn about different cultures to remove prejudices with the goal of mutual integration. One of these activities was also tried in this workshop, namely the Ecogram. The main purpose of this activity was to indicate connections that participants have with other people or institutions, and the quality and value they see in them by drawing circles with arrows based on how strong and how mutual – if at all – the connection is.

We received a lot of information about the IVC programme which was really interesting to listen to. We also highly appreciated the workshop hosts explaining the role of the mentor in their programme and how important mentors actually are. We did an interactive session where everyone had to fill out an “ecogram”. I took part in the exercise which deepened my newly learned knowledge and pushed me to put that into practice already.

As a key mission of Mentoring Europe and this very edition of the EMS, we are glad that this experience gave me a mixture of theory and practice. I enjoyed being in an international group, whose members shared a human-centric approach to their daily work and beyond. It was a nice experience that I was able to follow and now I can say that I know more about mentoring than ever before!

Input provided by Berenika Kusová & Markéta Michalcová, students in BA Humanities students at Charles University

Edited by Erika Irabor & Mattia Troiano

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from two international students who joined the EMS 2022 and have provided inputs on the workshops they have attended throughout the three-day summit. The following paragraphs are testimonials from two Czech bachelor’s students followed by a summary of the workshop sessions they attended. For this blog post, they have summarised the workshop session: How to help mentors to work on educational objectives within the framework of mentoring with children and youngsters. After the summary, the two students shared their personal perspectives on how the workshop they had the chance to follow.

How to help mentors to work on educational objectives within the framework of mentoring with children and youngsters

Organisation: Afev, ES

Facilitators: Nuria Bienvenido and Joke Aerts

AFEV Spain developed mentoring projects from a holistic perspective, using mentoring relationships as a means for children and youngsters to develop academic skills, personal autonomy, language, social skills, and more in general to support them according to the specific needs of the identified target group or groups.

They approach the relationship in a holistic context, making sure to collaborate with mentors, families, schools, universities, social services. The aim in this sense is to involve all actors and stakeholders that can contribute to make mentoring experiences or projects effective in their envisaged scope. In that context, they have translated this scientific evidence into working definitions of the educational objectives that they want to develop in mentoring relationships, testifying the benefit of an evidence-informed practice of mentoring. Or as in the Mentoring Europe community they would say, by bringing together a mutually beneficial exchange between research and practice.

The pursued educational objectives that AFEV Spain maintains at the core of its work are the improvement of youngsters’ self-esteem and motivation, the provision of a better and more effective academic orientation, the prevention or mitigation of school dropouts, and socio-economic isolation, also by challenging rooted critical view towards others and thus promotion of diversity also through the improvement of youngsters’ language skills. In the AFEV Spain model, mentors and mentees meet once a week for two hours for one year. At the beginning of this relationship, they don’t know each other and therefore they both start from scratch in a mutual discovery and getting to know process which becomes a stimulus for commitment and ongoing inspiration throughout the year, not only for mentees but also for mentors.

Their website offers a library of very useful tools and best practices they have been working with to achieve the broad set of objectives mentioned above. There are cards for every envisaged objective, and most of the time tools to facilitate processes that take place in institutions like schools, unable often to make class migration or level transition smooth experiences. The website also offers many activities that mentors and mentees can do to get to know each other and grow together. What surprised me the most among the vast inspiring take-aways from this workshop, is that, as workshop givers have emphasised, at the beginning of each year of the programme mentors do not know anything about their mentees, so they both start their journey together from the very same start!

At the end of this workshop, and after presenting the theory and practices of their mentoring programmes, we in the audience were asked to participate in discussions emerging from their activity cards, those same cards that mentors and mentees can use to start getting to know and discover more about each other. Inspiring discussions emerged and the idea of making the cards available in English was launched. So we look forward to seeing such a possible tool available to the broader European network of fellow mentoring programmes!

Input provided by Berenika Kusová & Markéta Michalcová, students in BA Humanities students at Charles University

Edited by Erika Irabor & Mattia Troiano

The student lab at Mentoring Europe has collected inputs from two international students who joined the EMS 2022 and have provided inputs on the workshops they have attended throughout the three-day summit. The following paragraphs are testimonials from two Czech bachelor’s students followed by a summary of the workshop sessions they attended. For this blog post, they have summarised the workshop session “mentoring for school success”. After the summary, the two students shared their personal perspectives on how the workshop they had the chance to follow.

Mentoring for school success

Organisation: University of Applied Sciences Rotterdam, NL

Facilitator/s: Loïs Schenk, Margriet Clement and Patrick Sins.

Mentors of Rotterdam is a school-based programme that connects yearly 1500 students at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and vocational studies as a student-mentor to more than 1500 mentees of primary and secondary schools. The programme lasts 20 weeks. During this time, mentors help mentees mainly with future career orientation, based on their talents, ambitions, and indeed personal development goals beyond technical skills growth. These latter include interpersonal skills, self-confidence, study skills, and many more, always mentees centred.

The core question at the heart of the project and thus this EMS2022 workshop is: how can student mentors support career orientation purposes of fellow students, i.e. their mentees? As usually happens in mentoring, the workshop givers have emphasised that there are more answers to this question. Student mentors can contribute to the career orientation of mentees by providing an understanding of the school system, requirements, and possibilities, understanding of own abilities, strengths, but also challenges, and areas of improvements and growth still to be explored. By aiming at boosting mentees’ confidence in themselves so as to make them gain a more positive personal representation and identification of themselves in the present but also of course in their future. Mentors are interested in mentees and focus on their interests.

This research is still at the beginning, it will develop, implement, and evaluate an evidence-informed Mentors of Rotterdam approach aimed at effectively improving mentees’ self-regulated learning. There will be interviews with mentors and mentees about their relationship and about the toolbox they used. There will be interviews with mentors and mentees about their relationship and about the toolbox they used.

During the workshop, after a more theory-focused initial part, presentation hosts asked us to concretely take part in one activity that the organisation employs as a tool to facilitate and make mentoring matches, namely the Motivation Thermometer. Thisis used for gaining insights into the processes that increase or decrease the motivation of pupils and into the steps that they can take to ultimately reach their goal. Mentoring practitioners draw a thermometer with a scale division of 0-10 and they put on the scale answers to the five questions about motivation. The most attention was caught by question number 5: what have you already achieved in life?

Some attendees found perhaps such question too distant from young people. Despite its simple concept, such activity was both challenging and very inspiring from my own personal perspective as the identification of already achieved goals at such a young age might still represent an important challenge.

I have incredibly appreciated the engagement that the activity and the hosts have required us as well as the ongoing interaction with questions from the audience they have allowed.

Written by Erika Irabor

Our European mentoring community is constantly seeking innovation – improvement, and interaction. Therefore, QUALITY in mentoring is like water for flowers – without it, nothing can grow. One way to accomplish that mission is to learn from other mentoring experts.

And this also represents the key purpose of this blog post. The Student Lab at Mentoring Europe has interviewed our American partner Thomas E. Keller, who over 20 years ago decided to focus on mentoring research after working in a mentoring programme for several years. He holds a Ph.D. in social work. He is a Professor in the school of social work at Portland State University, founder of the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Mentoring Research with a focus on mentoring in youth programmes, colleges, and workplaces. Examples of the core topics at the hearth of his research are:

• Mentoring relationship development
• Approaches to enhance mentoring programmes for better effect
• Roles of parents and caregivers in mentoring
• Focus on the importance of staff in mentoring relationships

With his profound knowledge and expertise in mentoring research, he shared a couple of insights with us that we shall bring to you in this blog post. Core topic of the discussion and interview was indeed one of the striking concept within the European mentoring field discussion. Namely,

QUALITY in mentoring programmes. 

How do you define quality in Mentoring?

Before talking about HOW mentoring programmes can improve their quality, it is important to understand WHAT quality actually means.

Thomas Keller believes quality in mentoring is given by:

• the actual experiences of the mentor and the mentee:  Quality is when a mentoring relationship benefits the mentee – meaning that they feel understood and supported.
• helping the mentee in pursuing what they want to achieve: It is key that mentors truly understand what the mentee needs and then find strategies to respond and help them achieve those very specific goals.
• achieving results that are reasonable for mentoring to accomplish. For example,  helping the mentee to successfully become socio-economically and culturally integrated represents a valuable outcome for which mentoring has been proven highly effective!

Mentoring goes beyond social and civic goals like the reduction of school dropouts.

If an outcome like that is influenced by many factors, it is more difficult to make a difference with mentoring. Every established mentoring relationship comes down to the connection between the mentor and the mentee.

But here is a problem:

Before quality in mentoring can be reached, certain factors have to be in place.

Thomas Keller noted research findings generally reveal that “half of the people who become mentors are naturally good at it”. While this fact may sound good to half of the mentors community, it also implies that the other 50% struggles with things such as:

• interaction skills
• helping others
• supporting others.

And what is the solution or solutions? These are the recommendations our interviewee has given us:

1. To ensure better quality in mentoring, the struggles of the mentors who are not naturally good at their role can be addressed through proper programme support.

2. Mentoring programmes should provide quality training for upcoming mentors when the expectations are clearly communicated to the mentor.

3. The programme staff plays an crucial role. Not only, this should not be hired just to train & match mentors. Program staff members should closely work together with mentors, implying regular contact throughout the mentoring relationship and providing support net to mentors themselves.

Thus, in short visualisation:

Mentor + Programme staff = valuable and more likely quality mentoring relationship

What else can mentoring programmes do to ensure better quality?

To answer this question let us maintain for a moment the focus on programme staff and mentors.

The first step in ensuring a better quality in mentoring programmes is to hire qualified staff and always deploy evidence-informed practices. Thomas Keller gave us examples from his research:

• One study showed that when matches were supported by staff who were highly motivated and engaged in their work and emphasized following program guidelines, mentees later reported having more positive mentoring relationships.

• A second study found that the amount of time staff spent providing support to mentors during regular check-in phone calls was important. Mentors who had no contact with staff were the least satisfied with their volunteer experience. As the length of conversations with staff increased, mentors had higher levels of volunteer satisfaction. 

• In a currently ongoing study that is not yet published, when mentors said that their programme used a range of recommended practices, the mentors had better working relationships with staff, and better support from the staff contributed to more positive mentoring relationships.

Moreover, both the mentor and programme staff should be able to be long-term. So instead of focusing on short-term goals, it is better to keep the bigger picture in mind and think about a strategy on how these people can stay for longer periods. However, to achieve this, our interviewee emphasised, the programme staff should be supported with good working conditions and indeed rely on best practices.

Lastly, yet probably most importantly, when talking about quality in the context of mentoring, it is key that both parties deeply care about what they do. As a saying goes:

Only what comes from the heart can touch other hearts.

This is what mentoring programmes would significantly benefit from knowing

Often, mentoring programmes are aiming at reaching a certain amount of people.

But how can this numerical target be smoothly reached?

Thomas Keller has the answer:

 “Quantity can be achieved through quality.” (Keller,2022)

If your goal is to reach a certain amount of people, the best way to do this is through quality connected to the long-term objectives. When programmes provide good support, mentoring relationships are more successful, and participants stay in the programme longer. That way numbers build up because programmes are not constantly replacing lost matches.

He also pointed out that ‘Programs that want to improve their quality should start with their staff’. Staff should be well-qualified and well-supported so that practitioners enjoy their work because participants notice whether the staff are enthusiastic and really care.

Advice for the European mentoring field

The interview with Thomas Keller ended with a set of final advices for the European Mentoring Scene: 

First, if a mentoring programme strives for improved quality there has to be clarity in the programme model.

What does that mean?

It is simple.

The basis of any mentoring program has to be established on the following factors:

• Understand WHO you serve
• WHAT’s the purpose
• and HOW do you want to accomplish it

Example: One mentoring programme featured in this study was set up to help people with disabilities.

The goal of the programme was to help disabled people to be more involved in the community through mentoring. This aim was accomplished through social activities between the mentor and the mentee such as going to a museum together.

What can we learn from that?

The very focused goal resulted in a high effect because the people knew exactly what to do.

Keller added, ‘It’s all a matter of strategic thinking’.

If you want to address social issues with your mentoring initiative think about who you serve and how you want to accomplish it. A mentoring programme that aims at helping students to go to college should be designed with activities to do exactly that: Helping students to go to college. The programme model and mentoring activities should focus on that target audience and that purpose to enhance the outcome.

In summary, the mentoring community in Europe would highly benefit from focusing on

How better structuring mentoring. This includes aspects such as:

• What mentors have the right skills?
• How often do the mentor and mentee meet?
• Where do they meet?
• What activities do they do? And are these strictly aimed at achieving both the overall purpose of the programme with a mentee-centred customisation?
• How often do the mentor and programme staff members meet?

‘Think carefully about different options in mentoring and have good reasons behind your mentoring program model’. Keller,2022

As a final note, Keller recommended that practitioners should involve targeted mentees in designing and developing the programme to meet more concretely their needs from the very designing phase.

Read more about Thomas E. Kellers’ work here, and here