National Mentoring Month – January 2022

 

National Mentoring Month 2022

January is National Mentoring Month in the United States. Mentoring Month was initiated by Mentor in 2002 and to use their own words, “Every January, the mentoring movement unites in celebration of National Mentoring Month and uses the power of our collective voice to recruit new mentors, advance the mentoring field’s legislative priorities, and drive meaningful change for young people. The month-long celebration of mentoring is full of exciting opportunities to grow the movement and raise awareness about the power of relationships.”

So whether you are in the US, UK or anywhere else, now is a good opportunity to reflect on mentoring in your life and work. Some of you may be involved in mentoring programmes – as mentors, mentees or administrators of schemes and already are experiencing the value of mentoring. For you, it’s a good time to reflect on the mentoring programme you are involved in. What have you learnt about yourself through it? What have your learnt about others? What might you do differently? And thank those involved in any way that have supported you.

For others, you may have been thinking about being involved in mentoring for a while, but not quite taken the step to get involved.

Is it Time to Join a Mentoring Programme?

You may be considering joining a mentoring programme – at university, or as part of a charity or body that is running them. They are a great thing to get involved in and having contacts and someone to both support you and to be able to bounce ideas off adds another dimension to life – and can help in ways you hadn’t already thought of. So, look around for schemes going on near you and how you can learn from others to shape your future.

What About Becoming a Mentor?

Being a mentor can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s an opportunity to look at your experience, at what you have gained and to pass that on to others. It can be a way of realising how much you have learnt in your different experiences in life – be that in your career or personal life that you can share and support others in. Universities are increasingly running schemes, so contacting your alumni office at your old university might open up some opportunities.

Do You Want to Start Running a Mentoring Scheme?

You might be considering running a mentoring scheme at your university, charity or business. There is lots you can learn from others in doing this, about what has worked and what hasn’t. Here at sfG MentorNet, we developed our mentoring software to support the many different types of mentoring schemes. We also offer lots of features, including the matching of mentors and mentees, to running events, reporting and even evaluating the success of the scheme, so that you can demonstrate to others the impact of your mentoring scheme. If you are looking at running a scheme, we encourage you to think from the start about how a mentoring platform can add value to it and make it easier to run, by facilitating many of the tasks, removing the administrative burden and safeguarding all participants of the mentoring scheme. Click HERE to find out more about how mentoring software helps schemes like yours.