Mentorship as a Caregiving Relationship: Opportunities and outcom
By Eden Fesseha
Keywords: mentorship, positive youth development, education, support networks
Through my community care project, I am exploring the topic of mentorship, in particular youth mentorship and its effects on development. I have been working with the Emerging Leaders Program at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. We are a female-centered mentorship program for high school students from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and Prospect Hill Academy. So far, we have been doing mentor-training, which has proven very enriching as we have learned about youth development and mentoring best practices and heard from incredible speakers, including our mentees’ teachers. We have also established the norms for our space and what we hope to accomplish as mentors.
Mentoring is a unique caregiving experience. You are supporting the growth and development of someone else, who is usually your junior and whom you guide. Unlike their parents, however, you do not get to spend that much time with them, but even through your little interaction, you can make an indelible impact.
Through my section of the syllabus, I hope to illustrate that there is a process and method to mentorship, and mentoring for young people can have direct implications on their well-being and future success. In particular, mentorship has phases. First, there is the establishment of a relationship and the building of trust. Sometimes, this is facilitated by programs such as the one that I’m currently in and other times, it takes deliberate effort on the part of the mentor to find time for you to get to know each other. Then, there is the period of facilitating the mentees growth and sharing experiences with them that cultivate their interests. Finally, most relationships come to an end because, for example, the program ends.
The sources that I’ve included in my syllabus section fall into one of the following categories: academic articles that define mentorship and argue for the necessity of youth menotrship, articles about the qualities of mentors, articles and anecdotes that reflect on the experience of being a child or parent during COVID-19, and articles that are critical of traditional mentorship strcutures. With these sources, I hope to first define what mentorship is and provide evidence rooted in psychology for the claim that mentorship is a positive force in young people’s lives. Then, I want to shed light on what is commonly thought of as mentor best practices across different types of mentoring–youth mentoring, mentoring professional development, and peer-to-peer mentoring. The articles about being a parent or child during COVID-19 provide some background for the context in which my fellow mentors and I are working–their are unique stresses and considerations when working with young people, in particular, those that aren’t physically attending school. Lastly, I want to create some debate around the topic of mentorship by including articles which suggest alternative modes of mentoring.
Resources
Aguilar, Angela. “Parenting During Coronavirus: Opportunities To Reconnect And Decolonize”. Yes!, 2020, https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/04/02/coronavirus-kids-activities-parenting/. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Bazelon, Emily. “Will This Be A Lost Year For America’s Children?”. The New York Times Magazine, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/11/magazine/covid-school-reopenings.html. Accessed 28 Oct 2020.
Camera, Lauren. “Coronavirus Closes Schools For Half Of All Kids In The U.S., Now What?”. U.S. News, 2020, https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-03-16/whats-next-as-coronavirus-closes-schools-for-half-of-all-kids-in-the-us. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Center for the Developing Child (Harvard University). How To Support Children (And Yourself) During The COVID-19 Outbreak. 2020, https://46y5eh11fhgw3ve3ytpwxt9r-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID-19_for_families_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Chopra, Saint, Vineet, Sanjay. “6 Things Every Mentor Should Do”. Https://Hbr.Org/2017/03/6-Things-Every-Mentor-Should-Do, 2020, https://hbr.org/2017/03/6-things-every-mentor-should-do. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Fawal, Julia. “The 5 Types Of Mentors You Need In Your Life”. Ideas.Ted.Com, 2020, https://ideas.ted.com/the-5-types-of-mentors-you-need-in-your-life/. Accessed 30 Oct 2020.
Lee, Shawna J, et al. “Parenting Activities and the Transition to Home-Based Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Children and Youth Services Review, 2020, p. 105585.
Martin, Courtney. “The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems.” Bright Magazine. https://brightthemag.com/the-reductive-seduction-of-other-people-s-problems-3c07b307732d
Miranda-Chan, Thomas, et al. “The Functions and Longitudinal Outcomes of Adolescents’ Naturally Occurring Mentorships.” American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 57, no. 1-2, 2016, pp. 47–59.
Montgomery, B., & Page, S. (2020). Mentoring beyond Hierarchies: Multi-Mentor Systems and Models. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/resource/25568/Montgomery%20and%20Page%20-%20Mentoring.pdf
Rhodes, Jean E, et al. “The Rhetoric and Reality of Youth Mentoring.” New Directions for Youth Development, vol. 2002, no. 93, 2002, pp. 9–20.
RTE News. Back To School In The Age Of Covid-19. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbF0TqVA1BE. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Setha M. Low, and Sally Engle Merry. “Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas.” Current Anthropology, vol. 51, no. S2, 2010, pp. S203–S226.
So, Adrienne. “Parenting In The Age Of The Pandemic Pod”. Wired, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/parenting-pandemic-pod/?itm_campaign=BottomRelatedStories_Sections_1&itm_content=footer-recirc. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
The Mentoring Relationship Cycle. Clarke County Mentorship Program, 2020, pp. 32-34, https://www.clarkecountymentorprogram.org/uploads/4/3/8/8/43883005/the_mentoring_relationship_cycle.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.
Yanklowitz, Shmuly. “Spiritual Mentorship: Awakening Truth In Others”. Huffpost, 2020, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/spiritual-mentorship-awak_b_5196826. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.