The document discusses how to build positive mentoring relationships and maximize impact as a mentor. It provides guidance on the roles of mentors, which include building relationships, teaching life skills, helping mentees access resources, and increasing their ability to get along with others. It also discusses listening to mentees, being mentee-driven, respecting boundaries, providing support and challenge, and acknowledging the reciprocity of mentoring relationships. The document aims to help mentors effectively guide their mentees.

1. How to Build Positive Mentoring Relationships Maximize Your Impact Presented by: April Riordan Director of Training & Community Partnerships Mentoring Partnership of MN

2. The Role of Peer Mentors Please walk around and respond to the questions on the four flip charts.

3. How do you carry your baggage?

4. Four Jobs of Mentors Build positive relationships Teach & model life skills Help mentees access resources Increase ability to get along with others

5. Build positive relationships Have some fun together and earn each others’ trust. Give each other a break from carrying your baggage.

6. Teach & model life skills Share your personal experiences. Model skills like patience and respect. Show your mentee how you carry your baggage.

7. Increase ability to get along with others Try starting by exploring cultures that are new to both of you. When you are ready, talk about how the cultures you carry are the same and how they are different.

8. Help mentee access resources Fill your mentee’s bag with new connections, ideas and experiences; link them to resources they can tap into to help them carry their load.

9. Maximize Your Impact Different way of thinking Focus on “Level 2” Skills Role Modeling

10. Michael While you’re together one afternoon, Michael tells you that he was invited to go with his friend’s family to the Twins game in Minneapolis next weekend. He is mad that he can’t go and tells you it is because his mom didn’t pay the $10 for his ticket. How do you maximize your impact as a mentor?

11. Kathy It is a Saturday and you are at Walmart with your friends, just hanging out and shopping for clothes. Your friend is talking loudly about a girl she doesn’t like, using a lot of profanity. She then starts holding up plus-size shirts and pants and suggesting they should buy them for the girl. Just as you start to laugh at the joke, you see your mentee, Kathy. She is standing near her mom’s cart, listening and watching. How do you maximize your impact as a mentor?

12. WELCOME MENTEES!

13. Find a partner You will introduce each other to the group: Name Experience with mentoring? (have been or have had a mentor in the past?) Important characteristic of a mentor What are your Halloween plans?

14. What is the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota? The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota (MPM) connects kids with the power of mentoring Our primary focus is to expand the capacity & increase the quality of mentoring across Minnesota Throughout Minnesota, we work with more than 500 adult-to-youth mentoring programs

15. Stages of Mentoring Relationships Middle Closure Beginning

16. Listening We talk so much. We’re telling kids this and that. We forget to listen. We forget to ask, ‘What do you think? How do you feel?’ It’s only after we know how they feel and what they think that we can know what to say.” --John Hogan, mentor

17. Being Mentee-Driven Most important denominator in successful matches is the ability of mentors to allow the relationship to be mentee-driven Mentors who enter the relationship with preconceived ideas about the ways in which they will help mentees are less successful

18. Respecting Boundaries When mentors ask young people personal questions before a solid relationship has been established, the most common response is silence.

19. Being Sensitive to Differences Mentors and mentees may come from different worlds (class, generational, cultural, etc.) Focus on youth, help negotiate changing relationships with parents at a stage in life when these bonds are being redefined

20. Providing Support & Challenge Balance - nurture youth while also pushing them toward their goals Successful mentors are consistently there for young people

21. Acknowledging Reciprocity Mentoring is a two-way street Growth, benefits, and struggles are present on both sides Mentors who are able to convey to mentees that they are they for mutual exchange stand the greatest chance of making a solid connection

22. Being Realistic Mentors are not magic Mentor who work with young people toward achievable goals can make a real contribution Thick skin, ongoing commitment & genuine caring essential to success

23. Mentoring is hard work Difficult to connect Social distance Young people do not exist in a vacuum, other influences must be recognized when measuring outcomes Many matches fail Program capacity

24. How do you carry your baggage?

25. Four Jobs of Mentors Build positive relationships Teach & model life skills Help mentees access resources Increase ability to get along with others

26. Build positive relationships Have some fun together and earn each others’ trust. Give each other a break from carrying your baggage.

27. Teach & model life skills Share your personal experiences. Model skills like patience and respect. Show your mentee how you carry your baggage.

28. Help mentee access resources Fill your mentee’s bag with new connections, ideas and experiences; link them to resources they can tap into to help them carry their load.

29. Increase ability to get along with others Try starting by exploring cultures that are new to both of you. When you are ready, talk about how the cultures you carry are the same and how they are different.

30. Maximize Your Impact Different way of thinking Focus on “Level 2” Skills

31. Impact of Mentoring

32. A lost child tells of a dream… In the dream, he is stuck in a pitch-dark room, helpless and confused, awkwardly feeling his way around. His mentor is there too in the dream, and knows just where the light switch is. But instead of turning it on, the mentor waits, then aims the beam of a flashlight at the switch. It’s the job of the child to do the rest.

33. Thank you! For more information about mentoring opportunities in your community, visit: www.mentoringworks.org