Support and Monitoring

Although most mentoring pairs will derive enough pleasure from their mentoring experience to keep them going, some reach an impasse that makes them begin to doubt their willingness to continue. Ongoing support and supervision is important to keeping these relationships growing.

Ongoing Support, Supervision and Monitoring

Successful mentoring relationships do not just happen automatically. Although most mentoring pairs will derive enough pleasure from their mentoring experience to keep them going, some reach an impasse that makes them begin to doubt their willingness to continue. That's why providing ongoing support and supervision is so important.

Your program coordinator should contact each mentor within the first two weeks of the match to assess how things are going, then follow up every two weeks for the next few months. Once the relationship appears to be making progress, your program coordinator might try mentors once a month to ensure the match continues to make progress and to address any problems that may arise.

Ways to offer ongoing support

Your program coordinator can:

Regularly discuss how things are going either by phone, e-mail or in person.
Designate individuals to serve as sounding boards for mentors and mentees who have questions, concerns or issues they need to address regarding their mentoring relationships.
Hold regular feedback sessions with groups of mentors to discuss common problems and ways to address them. (Devise a training component so new mentors learn beforehand how to deal with such concerns.)
Hold similar sessions with mentees sharing the feedback with mentors. (Use the feedback to refine your program and to increase mentor/mentee retention.)
Observe and interact with mentors and young people during planned activities.
Establish a formal process for managing grievances, re-matching, solving interpersonal problems, handling crises and bringing closure to the relationships that end prematurely.
Offer special training sessions on a wide array of topics, including diversity and cultural sensitivity, conflict resolution, problem-solving skills, teen sexuality and pregnancy, communication skills and skills for setting limits.
Create opportunities to recognize and show appreciation for mentoring participants.
Develop a newsletter or other communication vehicle to share with mentors, mentees, parents, funders, etc.

For additional ideas, look to your State or Local Mentoring Partnership to take advantage of the training and support opportunities they offer.

(This section is excerpted from How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice, Section VI. How to Structure Effective Program Operations.)

Monitoring and Support Resources

Additional information, resources and tools are available in the Find Resources section and in the How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice Tool Kit.