In honour of National Mentoring Day we have been collating resources, articles and webinars to celebrate, support and champion mentoring to our community members.
We spent some time with Richard Daniel Curtis from The Mentoring School earlier this week to explore mentoring, what it is, what it isn’t, how it can improve productivity and some top tips on running a mentoring programme.
You can watch Laura-Jane’s full interview with Richard here and read a snapshot of the questions below:
Firstly, let’s find out a little bit more about Richard Davis Curtis, CEO, The Mentoring School:
Richard is a behaviour expert, with experience in working across pupil referral units and schools.  Richard has had experience of working with employers, supporting them to engage with the young generation and  hard to reach young people. Richard and his team have had experience in supporting the closure of The Kids Company and working with the resettlement of Syrian refugees.
The mentoring school offers courses in mentoring children from the age of 2, supporting individuals at all levels of education, in to employment and up to very senior level business people.
Mentoring is all about support from someone who has already walked the walk, someone who is experienced in that area or someone who has an experienced approach in that area. Often we find that mentees get confidence out of mentoring, they like the fact that someone has been there and can tell them what to watch out for.
Mentoring is all about helping people to overcome barriers, to look at what the current block is and getting the help to unpick that. A large part mentoring is about signposting and networking, connecting the mentee with other relevant people who can support their goals.
Mentoring is very different from coaching.
If you are working with people with complex needs, is there a danger that you might start unlocking deeper challenges with mental health?
If something is providing a block for a mentee why wouldn’t you be involved even if it is to signpost to professional services? In all of the training through The Mentoring School covers when to support with mental health and how to recognise when is right to signpost to professional services.
One of the things we can do to combat the stigma of mental health is through mentoring. One of the mechanisms we have to support poor mental health is our network that includes mentors. Â It is of course important to ensure mentors are provided with the tools, support and guidance.
With mentoring is about what the current block or barrier and I am going to use my experience to help you through that. Counselling or therapy is about talking through what is worrying you and where that comes through. With counselling it looks at what is causing it. A therapist will look at the root of that problem. A mentor looks at what we can do now for you to overcome that block.
Why is mentoring so important?
Deloitte did some research last year looking at millennial that found millennial who receive mentoring are twice as likely to stay with that employer long term. What we are finding that young people like receiving mentoring they find it a good way to receive the support that they require to engage effectively with their environment.
It is also about engagement, satisfaction, retention and productivity
What about apprenticeships, how does this impact on-boarding and pastoral care?
This relates to how they were founded, employers approached us to say they are struggling to engage with apprentices, some with mental health issues or some just not engaging. Small scale research showed that in the majority of cases the expectation was that support is provided by line manager or team manager but only 31% of those managers were confident providing that level of support. At the same time nearly half of the apprentices engaged with said they weren’t getting support they needed from their employer.
We adapted mentor qualifications to support work based training, the training deals with the stigma just being expected to be a normal employee but cheaper and being expected to have all of the intrinsic work skills, the training also empowers employers to offer pastoral support. Our training is designed to ensure that as apprenticeships grow as part of the levy that we are preparing the workforce for what they need to do and can do, with all of the practical tips that come along side it.
Young people and apprentices are telling us they aren’t getting support whilst at the same time employers and leaders in employment are telling us they don’t know how to give that support
If you look at apprenticeship reforms happening there is a lot more emphasis being placed on employers, the 20% off the job requirements is one example of this. One of things which has been an honour to do is working with the Ofsted inspectorate team to brief them on what we are doing to provide tools to support apprentices in the workplace. It is only a matter of time before people need to start looking at what support is being provided in the workplace and the natural body for doing that would be OFSTED.
Top tip : consider how youth friendly you are by undertaking the Platinum Talent Match Mark
What does good look like?
First thing to say is that a mentor should not be someones manager, this can be a conflict of interest. If I am your employee and you are having difficulties doing your job, going to your manager might make them  think  it as skills shortages. A mentor would approach this differently and explore what resources are available and who you could talk to. Generally, 80% of the time there isn’t an issue but if you are dealing with a capability issue there is a conflict. Managers should/can be mentors of other people’s subordinates but not their own.
Mentoring needs to be seen as sacrosanct, it can not be that something crops up and mentoring sessions are disregarded. Mentoring needs to be entrenched and come from high above.  Our research found that senior management have a firm belief that they are able to support young people’s needs but as you look more towards the coal face/grass roots what you find is that the gap widens and team leaders and managers don’t feel confident.
Top tips for creating a high quality mentoring programmes
Don’t let manager’s manager direct employees
Importance of training for mentors, being a good employee doesn’t mean you are a good mentor, training helps understand the theory, structure and process of mentoring what good practise looks like and where the boundaries are. Making sure that you as an organisation agree how you operate mentoring and how it will be run, agree the process and stick to it. Set out how often you meet and how things will move forward.
There are different ways of running mentoring, drop-in sessions, group sessions or paired mentee – mentor session or peer mentoring including things like skype mentoring. There are lots of different options, one size doesn’t fit all but an organisation need to agree the way to move forward.
Next Steps:
- Find out more about The Mentoring School here, check out their online conference!
- Find out more about the Platinum Talent Match Mark and how you can be recognised as a Youth Friendly Employer
- Log in as a Community Member and find useful templates and guides for mentoring
- Read more about National Mentoring Day here
