WORKSHOP LED BY AMORUSO, G. & AMORUSO-STENZEL, F. & HÄSELER-BESTMANN, S.K.
Gloria Amoruso is the founder and CEO of the Berlin-based NGO “kein Abseits!” and has been working in the youth mentoring field for about ten years. “kein Abseits!” focuses on the encounter of different living environments and works with both local and newcomer families. Gloria is very engaged in the context of impact orientation and assessment in the social sector and how specific tools can be implemented in the every-day work of organizations. She already organized and facilitated several workshops and events in that regard. She is also interested in the connection of research and social entrepreneurship, as currently she is working on her PhD-thesis in political science which focuses on questions of social justice and environmental policy. Gloria is also doing research about the impact of mentoring and is an editor of the research-focused mentoring newsletter “Telemachos” in Germany.

Last but not least, she is a networking person who co-founded the Berlin Mentoring Network and has been involved as a steering group member in previous European and international projects, such as the European Mentoring and Befriending Exchange Programme (embep.eu). Gloria was involved in the organization of the European Mentoring Summit 2018 in Berlin. She was in charge of the content, the moderation and documentation.

Florian Amoruso-Stenzel has a graduate degree in educational sciences and has been managing mentoring projects with children of primary school age and adults since 2009. He is currently working as a pedagogical director for the mentoring association “kein Abseits!” He used to work as a mentoring coordinator for many years, leads a community service project to engage young people (former mentees) in volunteering and is responsible for the organization’s impact assessment and evaluation.

Florian is the co-founder of the Berlin Mentoring Network and has been a member of the Executive Board on an honorary basis since 2012. As initiator of numerous projects, he encourages the exchange of experiences between mentoring coordinators and provides impulses for further development of their programs. Under his leadership, several projects have been implemented: “Mentoring for Sustainable Development” (2013/2014), “One to one works! Effectiveness Orientation in Mentoring Programs” (2016). Furthermore, Florian is an editor of the research focused mentoring newsletter “Telemachos” and was the head of the “European Mentoring Summit 2018”. Recently, Florian just launched the project „Impact³“, which will be the very first impact assessment involving several different mentoring projects in Berlin at the same time.

Sarah Häseler-Bestmann is professor of social work, head of the graduate programme in social work and head of the department of pedagogy and social affairs at the Medical School Berlin. She completed her diploma studies in social work at the Catholic College for Social Work in Berlin and her Master’s degree in adult education/lifelong learning at the Humboldt University of Berlin before completing her doctorate in social family education at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

While working on her dissertation, she worked as a freelance practitioner in practical research and evaluation processes as well as in counselling and advanced training in various fields of social work, such as youth vocational orientation, child and youth education, and district work and family support.

In her teaching she focuses mainly on district work, the concept of communal space orientation, family support, child and youth welfare, health promotion and research methods in social work. In addition, she also has been holding workshops and further training courses for social professionals.

ABSTRACT
What is your major starting question or hypothesis
After three years of very good experiences in a research-practice partnership to assess the impact of mentoring with a mixed methods approach (including participatory elements) we asked ourselves: 1) What are the most important learnings that made this partnership so successful? 2) What is the added value of research-practice partnership for mentoring organizations on the one hand and researchers on the other hand?

During the session we will share our experiences and learnings focusing on the participatory design and collaboration of this partnership as well as the research project itself. Furthermore, we would like to encourage the other participants to share their learnings, needs and challenges as well to collect a treasure of experiences valuable for future projects and collaborations.

How do you plan the session? Which method will you use? 
The session will be a facilitated discussion, in which experiences will be shared and discussion among the participants will be enabled. Participatory methods will be integrated in the session, e.g. mentimeter. The session is based on the following structure:
– Introduction/get to know each other and expectations,
– Short input of the research-practice collaboration: sharing the learnings.
– Facilitated discussion.

What is the goal of the session?
The goal of the session is threefold:
– to better understand the pros and cons of co-developed research projects about mentoring in cooperation of practitioners and researchers.
– to discuss the pros and cons of participatory methods (with mentors and mentees) in assessing the impact of mentoring.
– to support the networking between researchers and practitioners.