Mentor Introduction

We’re glad you are interested in becoming a volunteer mentor. Here is some more information to help you decide if this is for you.

What is a Mentor ?

A mentor is a ‘critical friend’ who can get to know someone, listen carefully to them, ask searching questions and help them on their journey

Mentoring is a powerful and biblical way of developing Christian leaders in mission. There are many biblical examples such as Paul and Timothy, Moses and Joshua.

Mentoring is a medium-term relationship where a mentee receives help and support, through a ‘critical friend’ while working through key issues they may face in leadership and mission. This relationship can help them make significant transitions, and grow their ministry, gifts and skills. Our approach to mentoring is off-line (you will not mentor someone from your own organisation) and non-directive (you help them find the right answer rather than tell them what to do).

What is the scope of Mentoring ?

Based on the pilot scheme, we have widened the scope to cover skills development and current issues as well as leadership growth and development. Often immediate issues need to be addressed first before a person is able to contemplate direction, development and vision.

Often a mentor’s network of contacts can be a valuable resource for the mentoring process. For example, I may not have experience of producing a project funding proposal, but I know someone who has who is happy to provide some help to my mentee.

What attitudes, skills and experience do I need to be a Mentor ?

Attitudes

• strong interest in and commitment to developing others
• willing to explore issues, rather than jump to solutions
• willing to give appropriate feedback
• respectful of another’s viewpoint and decisions
• patience, allowing mentee the time they need to decide
• committed to growing yourself and your skills
• willing to use your network of contacts to help the mentee
• strong commitment to confidentiality

Skills

• strength in developing relationships and rapport with others
• a good listener
• able to clarify situations, options and issues your mentee is facing
• able to show empathy and care
• able to reflect both during and outside mentoring sessions about session content and mentee issues
• asking helpful, insightful questions
• able to help someone find their solution rather than tell them what to do
• able to understand yourself and others
• flexibility in approach
• fluent English speaker

Being a mentor will help you develop these skills further, but if you know that several of these are not your strengths then maybe mentoring is not for you.

Experience

• you don’t need to have been a mentor before, although it may help
• you do need substantial experience in leadership, (typically 5-10 years) either in mission, ministry or secular work
• you do need to be a committed, mature Christian

How could I benefit from being a Mentor ?

Yes, you can really benefit from participating by

• developing your skills in mentoring, which will be valuable to you in your role and ministry
• the rewards of seeing your mentee grow in confidence and capability
• being stretched yourself in the process of helping an emerging leader, possibly facing unfamiliar challenges
• reflecting on your own learning as you share with your mentee
• developing and modifying your leadership of others as you reflect on your mentee’s challenges working with their leaders

What support will I have ?

In addition to the initial e-training,

• you can access a growing range of e-resources available to you as a mentor on a secure area of this website. (We encourage you to offer feedback on additional resources that you would find valuable and to offer matrial that you think others might find helpful)
• you can contact me, Nigel Daly, the project co-ordinator, a professional coach, if you need further help.

What commitment do I need to be a Mentor ?

• Participating in a mentoring session every 4-6 weeks, typically via skype or phone, occasionally face to face, when feasible
  • As this is an international scheme and mentees’ availability may sometimes be limited due to internet access and privacy, ideally you will be available, by prior arrangement, during the daytime, as well as the evenings and weekends.
  • You may wish to talk with your organisation about whether they would be happy for you to do a mentoring session during the day, possibly using their equipment. It may be that they are happy to support you in this role, especially if they are a Christian organisation, and will view it as part of building God’s kingdom
  • It may be more difficult to find mentees for mentors with limited daytime availability, so please consider this when applying and be patient!
  • Participation includes making your own personal notes on each session for your own use.
• Preparing for and reflecting on mentoring sessions – this may mean setting aside time in a busy schedule to look through the previous session’s notes and to think of some helpful questions.
• Being in regular email contact with your mentee as agreed by you both
• Prayerful support for your mentee
• Reflecting on and developing your mentoring practice
• Occasional feedback to us on how things are going
• Minimum commitment of one year, ideally two years, although a successful relationship can go on longer than this.

How does this scheme work ?

• Potential mentors register on-line on this website. We will then review your details, contact your reference and have a skype/conference call with you. You will understand that we will carefully review your registration, reference and explore issues with you on a skype call, before accepting you into the scheme. This is to ensure both mentors and mentees have beneficial experiences
• You complete some initial e-training (this will take approximately 3 hours or so if you are new to mentoring and less if you have some experience already)
• Once accepted, you are ready to be matched to a mentee. You will never be matched with mentees from your own organisation. Mentees normally will be offered a choice of mentor including, where suitable mentors are available, someone of the same gender.
• Once matched, you start the mentoring journey together. E-resources are available on-line to help you, as well as advice from a professional coach, should you need it.
  • We aim to offer these for the duration of your mentoring relationship, and commit to provide these for at least 12 months from the start of your mentoring relationship

Does it cost anything ?

Mentors can register free of charge. Time then give to mentees is voluntary and no costs incurred by mentors are recoverable. Mentees have to pay a one-off registration fee of £25 (which goes towards the maintenance of the website and project as a whole) although those who are unable to pay for this can request a bursary. There are no other fees.

The only cost you may incur could be telephone charges if you need to contact your mentee on the phone, typically when the skype connection is poor. There are plenty of cheap international telephone schemes nowadays advertised on the web, and it is worth researching these so you know how to call your mentee cheaply if skype is unreliable that day. Do remember that mission workers in some countries may not be able to easily afford to ring you and that call charges from some countries are much higher, so you should always offer to call them. No costs are recoverable from the project.

What if it doesn’t work out between myself and the mentee ?

We encourage you to work at developing the relationship over at least three sessions. You can seek advice to help you during this time.

We recognise that occasionally people just don’t connect and cannot build the right kind of rapport, so if after three sessions and having discussed it together you both feel, that it is just not working, let us know, and the partnership will end on a ‘no fault’ basis and we will start again!

What about confidentiality?

Your details are confidential and will only be shown to those handling your registration and potential mentees.

Your conversations with your mentee are confidential, within specific limits

• you will both be asked for feedback on how the overall process is going
• you can discuss any mentoring issues in confidence with the project co-ordinator

You should not discuss the contents of these conversations with anyone else, without explicit permission of the mentee. Your mentee is free to discuss the contents of your discussion, except for information that you share about yourself and your organisation.

What is Skype ?

Skype is an internet based communication system that many people use to contact people overseas. You register for free, and then can make and receive calls across the internet free of charge to other skype users. You need a headset with a noise cancelling microphone that can plug into your computer, or a microphone and loudspeakers, as well as broadband internet access. If you want to, you can add money to your skype account, so that you can call telephone numbers via skype at a reduced cost as well as skype users. Using a video webcam can help too so you can both see each other, which can be valuable when you may not have met, however video can slow down connection speed and quality.

You can find out more about skype at www.skype.com

How do I register ?

If you

• have carefully read the attitudes, skills and experience required, and believe you have these,
• are prepared to make the commitments required,
• and sense this is within your gifts and calling

then you are ready to register !!!

If you are unsure or have further questions, please contact us before registering.

In order to get to know you as a potential mentor, and to help match mentors with mentees, we will be asking for quite a lot of information about you, including a photograph, which will help your mentee get to know you.

To help you,

• You can download some of the sections to complete offline if you wish.
• At any point in the process, you can save what you have entered and return later if you wish.

All that we ask is that you carefully and fully provide the information, and don’t rush through the process.