The Mentor NetworkThe Mentor Network is a mentoring and coaching programme aimed at empowering youth and giving them positive and uplifting relationships with supportive and committed role models.The programmes goals, target beneficiaries and approach are outlined in the introduction to The Mentor Network. Why is mentoring necessary?Children need positive relationships with caring adults. Parents generally fill this central need, but many children benefit from relationships with other adults to supplement—or in some cases, substitute for— relationships with their parents. Therefore, the mentoring of youth by adults is one of the more promising program approaches intended to promote positive youth outcomes.Warm and close relationships with caring adults, supervision, and positive role models are the common resources and investments — or "inputs" —that mentoring interventions contribute to youth development. Positive outcomes associated with mentoring programsThe following positive outcomes are associated with a good mentoring programme:1. Overall, youth participating in mentoring relationships improved on some important educational measures. 2. Mentoring shows promise in helping youth develop healthy and safe behaviours. 3. Mentoring improves a number of social and behavioural outcomes, although the effects are sometimes indirect. Youth in a mentoring program are therefore…- Less likely to begin illegal drug use.- More confident in schoolwork performance. - Less likely to begin using alcohol. - Less likely to skip school. - Less likely to show violent or antisocial behaviour. - Able to get along better with families. Effective approaches to mentoringOnly proven methodologies are used in the mentoring programme, as supported by research and international experience. Studies conducted on mentoring have shown that the resilience approach to youth development is key to prevention and education efforts. Focusing on fostering resilience rather than on reducing high-risk behaviours brings results.It’s HOW we do what we do that counts more than what program we do. Mentoring works IF the mentors are developmental in approach. Mentoring does not work if the mentors are prescriptive. A developmental relationship is one which is grounded in the mentor’s belief that he or she is there to meet the developmental needs of the youth to provide supports and opportunities the youth does not have. The focus is on developing a reliable and supportive relationship, with the effect that the youth takes the right decisions and makes the necessary changes on their own. This has been shown to be the most effective approach. The studies further recommended that planning for “mentor-rich” environments must be a major focus of prevention, education, and youth services. Researcher Marc Freedman (1993) explains, Creating mentor-rich settings schools, social programs, youth organizations is one way of moving beyond the chimera of supermentoring, in which a single charismatic adult is called on to be a dramatic influence, providing all the young person’s needs in one relationship. In reality, young people need more than one relationship to develop into healthy adults (p. 111). He continues, our aspiration should be to create planned environments conducive to the kind of informal interaction that leads to mentoring. About Power Coaching™ with Mind Kinetics™ (PCMK®)PCMK® is used as part of the mentoring approach in some cases. Life coaching is defined by the International Coach federation as “A partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”Power Coaching® with Mind Kinetics®, PCMK™, is a coaching approach that incorporates coaching, mentoring and Mind Kinetics®. Coaching helps people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives and can be used to coach any age group. PCMK® greatly enhances the results of mentoring and although it cannot be applied to all the youth on the programme, it is a catalytic addition to the mentoring of some of the youth, allowing them to achieve greater and quicker results in life.
2. These findings come from Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), a national, not-for-profit research corporation based in Philadelphia. More than $2 million went toward a comprehensive examination of all aspects of mentoring as an intervention. Funders for the studies, conducted from 1993 through 1996, include Pew Charitable Trusts, the Commonwealth Fund and Lilly Endowments Inc. 3. Big Brothers of the National Capital Area Program’s Impact, 1996.
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Power Coaching™ with Mind Kinetics™. – “Power Coaching® for Powerful Living”
