Establishing a Mentorship Programme

ESTABLISHING A MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME

Most mentorship programmes have a basic design. What is important is - Identifying the goal of your programme and who would be the individuals benefitting from the programme.  Below is a diagrammatic representation that we generally follow:

STEPS IN INITIATING A MENTORING PROGRAMME

Once you’ve established that you want to set up a mentoring programme for a specific cohort of students, you can follow the basic steps below to start implementing your plan of action.

Step 1: Advertise to your Faculty, Club or Society etc. Be clear about closing date (determined by the day implementation timeline) and criteria.

Step 2: Check the number of students interested being mentored and determine the number of mentors that you would require. Note that the ration we use is a 1:5 support. This implies that the mentor will be meeting individually with the mentee and perhaps a group meetings also. However if it is mostly group sessions – 1:10 is also advisable with a few 1-1 sessions may also be had.  

Step 3: Recruit potential mentors by formulating the criteria for selection eg. Good academics; previous experience, good interpersonal skills etc.

Step 4:  Initiate a Mentor Training programme. Request CCDU to assist in designing and facilitating a basic training. This will be guided by the programme design and implementation strategy.  Ensure that the training covers the implementation process and all the logistics and expectations of the programme as well as ethical boundaries and obligations.

Step 5: Consider additional training eg. Processes that mentors should follow, additional skill development etc.

Step 6: Match mentors to mentees. Consider the following, set timelines to connect, is it a voluntary process, what happens if mentees do not want to participate,

Step 7: Monitor programme via monthly group meetings/check in sessions.

Step 8: Review the impact of implementing the mentoring programme annually. Consider the overall structure – is it working the way you envisaged it – do you want to build additional structures – consider a senior mentors layer – “Lead Mentors”

For more information or to access mentoring support kindly contact the CCDU at info.ccdu@wits.ac.za  or 011 717 9140