Facilitators: Duncan Chamberlain and four students of King Edward VI Five Ways School (Birmingham)
Abstract
The interactive workshop will address the following question: How can communities build sustainable mentoring relationships and programmes where the ownership and momentum are led by the stakeholders themselves?
This will be based on the SLAM! model which has been pioneered and developed in Birmingham (UK) over the past 10 years and has its base at King Edward VI Five Ways School (a school for 11-18 year olds). The model was proved to have significant impact amongst young people and communities both in the UK and internationally. SLAM!’s strength emerges from the peer-mentoring approach and in how it builds capacity for communities so they themselves develop solutions and make an impact. The instruction, organisation, focus and sustainability are peer-led and succession of the membership of the mentoring programme is built-in to the programme. SLAM! is led by 17-19 year olds in the Birmingham model, though it has seen variants in its use in Lithuania, Greece and the Czech Republic. SLAM! is founded on the principle of young people training other young people to become mentors. They choose the foci of the mentoring based on the demand flowing from the young people themselves. Thus, SLAM! has both a mentoring and an integrated training programme to develop new mentors. The training programme is based on practical learning, ‘’learning by doing’’, and though overseen by experienced adults, mentees often become mentors and are able to put back into their community.
Please see: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZAO95bp84uRPrMClmgF5o6twQeHsX_Ui
Main goals of the workshop
- To present the SLAM! model of peer-led and sustained mentoring and mentoring trainings
- To enable communities and organisations to successfully organise peer-led mentoring
- To demonstrate the impact of SLAM! and the different ways that this can be measured
- Offering concrete advice and expertise on how to start and sustain a SLAM! approach
Methods applied
The workshop will be designed and delivered by the young peer mentors themselves. All participants will be actively involved in an example of the training activities that the SLAM! programme uses to develop mentoring capacity within young people.
The workshop consists of
- A brief overview of the programme, evidence of its impact
- A carousel of mini activities, which offer different insights into SLAM! and some of the training activities the students use in their mentor coaching programme: a discussion on the barriers and opportunities to youth led mentoring, a problem-solving exercise, a solution design exercise, an activity to develop mentoring QEAS (qualities, experiences, attitudes and skills)
- A plenary and conclusion session
Target audience
- Mentors and mentoring organisations seeking to find new, stakeholder focused approaches
- Mentors and mentoring organisations, schools, colleges and universities and youth groups who are interested in funding practical ways to build capacity and increase social impact through mentoring led programmes
- Education institutions, youth organisations and businesses who wish find sustainable ways of developing peer-led mentoring and embedded mentoring
- Mentoring professionals and managers seeking a proven, practical approach to mentoring with impact