SUPPORTING MATCHES VIRTUALLY

Meet Creativity Connections, a fictional mentoring program that is in the process of building its capacity for match support. Recently, Creativity Connections shifted from an in-person mentoring model to an online program. Creativity Connections has some match-support practices in place, but it needs help making them more robust and transitioning some of its in-person activities into a virtual space. Read more about Creativity Connections and learn about its goals and challenges related to match support: Introducing Creativity Connections.

Benefits 

• E-mentoring programs can help increase social supports for mentees by giving them access to mentors they might not be able to meet with in person. Youth in rural areas, youth with disabilities, chronically ill youth, and youth looking for a mentor in a specific field of interest are able to build their supports through e-mentoring. 
• Positive effects for youth mental health by getting support online. 
• Programs can provide more in-depth safety measures for monitoring content when mentoring is done online.  

Challenges 

• Programs must be prepared to offer technical support to mentees and families, as many youth do not have full time access to wifi or rely on libraries or schools for reliable internet access. 
• Many families who do have internet access do not have access to high enough broadband speed and data limits for the necessary e-mentoring video calls.  
• Supportive, meaningful e-mentoring can be hindered by the different methods of communication we use when utilizing technology versus in person interactions. Programs need to ensure students are old enough to understand the difference in communication through a screen, and communication via text or email can easily be misconstrued or misunderstood, so diligence and clarity of communication expectations are necessary.  
• It can be challenging to sustain a virtual mentor-mentee relationship over the long-term. 

Find out more from the E-Mentoring Key Topic Overview from MENTOR Canada! 

If you haven’t yet, review the Guiding Questions for deciding whether e-mentoring is best for your program! 

*source: E-Mentoring Key Topic Overview from MENTOR Canada 

Using the updated checklist from Standard 5: Monitoring and Support in E-Mentoring: Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, Creativity Connections transitioned its match-support activities to a virtual format.

In its online feedback sessions with mentors and mentees, Creativity Connections learned matches needed additional support thinking of activities they could do virtually. 

Ideas for online match activities:

• Youth Assisting Youth compiled a list of 10 virtual match activities.
• MENTOR Colorado compiled a list of 55 match activities optimized for e-mentoring.
• Alberta Mentoring Partnership’s “High School Teen Mentoring Activity Book” contains over a dozen ideas, many of which can be easily adopted for a virtual format.
• VPOST created a Summer Activity Guide with 150 activities and challenges that can be adapted for virtual, in-person, or hybrid programming.

One way to build community and recognize matches is to share highlights and success stories with other participants. If you want to use photos or video footage of mentors or mentees, be sure to include a photo and video release waiver as part of the application and onboarding process. This waiver should specify the ways you would like to use mentees’ or mentors’ photos on social media or in any marketing materials. Before publicly sharing any photos or video footage, verify that all individuals who appear in the media have signed a waiver.

Suggested practice: Create a video and photo release waiver for mentors and mentees that outlines the use of photos in social media and print materials.

Online support networks for mentors can help increase connectivity and streamline communication. However, program staff members must have the capacity to constantly monitor and engage with these networks to build community — simply setting them up is often not enough. 

Selecting a Platform

Mentors’ comfort is key when choosing a social media platform for an online support community. Facebook and LinkedIn both offer private community groups that mentors might be willing to join. When you are ready:

• Announce that you will be offering a mentors-only Facebook or LinkedIn group to support mentors 
• Ask mentors to follow your organization on Facebook and/or LinkedIn

 
Initial Engagement

• Once mentors have been added to the group (or network), ask them to share a little about themselves and why they became a mentor 
• If there are any returning mentors, ask them to share some advice for the new mentors

Program Updates

• Share workshops, survey links, general check-in dates, and/or event registration links
• Ask mentors who will be attending the events to promote them — and if they have ideas for workshops and/or meeting agenda items
• Ask mentors to continue to share progress and updates on their matches

 
Resources 

• Share articles that support mentoring best practices (this is a good example) 
• Share virtual events, lectures, or workshops that mentors and mentees might be able to attend 
• Ask mentors to share resources they have found on their own

 
Photos and Trends

• Share photos from programmatic events — as long as the people in the photos have signed waivers 
• Use social media trends (such as “Throwback Thursday”) and national initiatives (such as National Mentoring Month in January) to showcase photos or other digital assets
• Highlight one mentor-mentee match a week 

Producing an end-of year online celebration event:

• Ask a mentee to co-emcee the event with a program staff member
• Ask a mentor and mentee to share their mentoring story with the group 
• During one of the last check-ins, ask mentees for ways they would like to express gratitude for their mentor (e.g., e-cards, poems, collective word art, or special videos)
• Ask a local celebrity if they will record a presentation or deliver one in real time 
• Determine whether your program has the budget to send small gifts to mentors or some type of craft that mentors and mentees can make during the event.

 
Additional ideas for match recognition:

• Send mentors and mentees notes of appreciation. This should come from both the program staff/Executive director as well as the mentee. 
• Program coordinators may wish to work with mentees to assist the mentees in writing gratitude letters to the mentor. Mentees might also want to create a craft to show their gratitude, such as painting a picture frame that includes a photo of the mentor and mentee. 

• Social media and mentoring
• Mentoring and social media: New research guides policy and practice
• Using text messaging to support Success Mentors