Mentorship Program

Objective
To provide role models and help a child develop socially and emotionally. To use our mentors to help our youth to learn to understand and communicate their feelings, to relate to their peers, and to develop relationships with other adults whilst growing personal confidence. To help our youth reach the performance goals and to enjoy being a loyal member of Pembroke Wanderers Hockey Club.

Strategies
1) Youth mentoring works best when goals focus on developing trusting relationships with peers and adults. The mentor should try to help the child develop socially, because social skills benefit the child in other areas of his or her life.

2) Parental involvement is also a beneficial goal. If possible, mentoring programs should try to get parents involved in a way that does not threaten the youth-parent relationship.

3) Programs should match mentors and youth on the basis of shared interests and youth, mentor, and family preference where possible. There is no perfect method to matching a mentor and youth, but the age, gender, and education of the volunteer matter much less than his or her outlook on mentoring. Mentors need to be “process-oriented” and focus on building trust and becoming a friend and confidant of the child rather than on a ‘result-based’ outcome. Once the trust is developed the child will work with the mentor to achieve the result.

4) The most successful mentor-youth relationships exist for at least a year, in this case it is imperative that the mentor develops the relationship at the start of the season and fulfills this role right to the end of the season. If this does not happen the program will be a failure. The mentor must try meet the child at least once a week, this should not be that difficult considering the nature of the hockey training and matches taking up two to three sessions a week. The mentor must always initiate these meetings because youth are not likely to initiate contact on their own.

5) Mentoring sessions should generally involve structured activities and mentors and youth should be equals in planning sessions. I see myself having a definite involvement in this regard as I appreciate mentors operate on a volunteer basis. I will be happy to provide documents and tables that may be necessary to help draw up schedules, help plan the season and so forth. I will also gladly help with various drills, exercises and strategies that may help develop a stronger mentor, child relationship.

Volunteer mentor strategies
1) It is crucial from a health and safety perspective to screen all our volunteers thoroughly, both in terms of safety and suitability for mentoring. Our volunteers will complete a written application and I will chat to them all personally prior to the start of the program. Pembroke must also ensure to have all volunteers vetted. I think this is important to protect both the children and us. These things may seem tedious and irrelevant but we do have to administer them in today’s day and age.

2) Mentors must see their goal as supporting the child and helping them to foster positive relationships in their life. They need to be willing to allow the child to make decisions about hockey matches or training, offering guidance but also refraining from being too judgmental or “preachy.” Overall, they should see their role as a trusted friend rather than as a teacher.

3) Should the mentor feel the child is really pushing the boundary and testing the limits they should bring this to light in the weekly Captains meetings or discuss with myself directly.

Reporting lines
Each child of school going age playing within a senior team will be appointed a mentor and there will be a maximum of three children appointed per mentor. Should the mentor feel this is too much we can vary this accordingly.

1) The mentors will report to the Captains of the respective teams on a weekly basis and feedback given accordingly. Once a month a written report must be made to the Development Officer, which will be filed.

2) Should there be hockey specific issue the Captains must include the coaches of those teams and well as the ladies Club Captain in discussions.

3) Should personal or social issues arise the mentors must report to me as the Development Officer and Designated person within Pembroke so that the issues can be dealt with sensitively and professionally.

I would hope that people that volunteer to become part of this program feel they can have a positive effect on a child’s future and with support from the club stay involved in this program and in turn have a positive impact on the youth in the club.

Natalie Fulton
Club Development Officer