Hello all,
Continuing in our mentorship project (remember to get in touch if you want to participate!), the council has drafted some guidelines for Mentors Role and Activities. Please let us know if you have any feedback or observation.
Background
What mentorship means within the Reps Program has changed. However, such changes have led to a lack of clarity on what are the role and activities of Mentors.
Mentors originally acted as gatekeepers within the Reps Program: they approved budget and selected new Reps. Then we introduced the coaching training and mentors were encouraged to take on more of a support role, as budget evaluation and the selection of new Reps was taken on by specialized Reps groups (a)
However, the new role of a mentor and what activities that role entailed has not been clearly defined. Here we try to clarify this role and activities.
1. What is the role of Reps Mentors?
The Mentor role is one of support. This involves a number of responsibilities, such as guiding new Reps within the Program, offering advice and encouragement to their mentees and supporting them in staying active and engaged withing the Reps Program.
2. Define mentors activities
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Mentors should have a general idea of how their mentees are doing and offer support as appropriate. To this end:
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Mentors should aim to organize at least one meeting a year with each mentee to touch base with them. This meeting could be used to discuss the plans of the mentee and also to establish what kind of support they need. A template for this meeting can be found here and here you can find more detailed suggestions on how to carry out the meeting.
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Mentors should be available to support their mentees with specific issues. When those emerge the mentee should be able to reach their mentor through an agreed upon communication channel, and receive support.
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Supporting new Reps: Work to support new Reps. New reps need more frequent guidance than other reps. A meeting every three months is advised.
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We would like Mentors to support the council in relating information about changes and important events in the Reps Program to their Mentees. We noticed that not all news we communicate reach all Reps, and mentors could have an important role to help the council make sure that all reps are up-to-date with what is happening in the program.
We will soon post some suggestion on how this communication might take place. You are encouraged to establish what are important updates that need to be communicated, but a member of the Reps Council will post in discourse and communicate during the Mentors call if there are important updates we would like the Mentors to pass on to their Mentees(N.B. These are not information that are given uniquely to Mentors, but we need Mentors’ help to make sure that important information reaches their mentees.
a) See: https://deimidis.github.io/community_curriculum/index.html#introduction, https://wiki.mozilla.org/Reps/Coaching,
