The Need for Mentoring and Tutoring

In today’s rapidly changing and often chaotic world, children and adolescents are in great need of supportive relationships with caring adults. By engaging in a caring relationship with a youth, mentoring and tutoring represents an opportunity to provide children and adolescents with the healthy forms of support, guidance, and nurturance they need to navigate successfully through the socio-psychological terrain of childhood and adolescence into adulthood.

Children who experience the most difficulty making the trip to young adulthood are those children whose life histories contain incidences of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, and other risk factors such as premature birth, delinquency, divorce, and negative peer group associations. Overwhelmingly, children that report abusive and high-risk histories find themselves placed in a foster care system. However, because of the resiliency of these children and the supportive guidance from adults, they can often heal and arrive at young adulthood with a newfound sense of wonder and hope for their futures.

what is mentoring?

Mentoring is not a new phenomenon, but simply an old process that works. Mentoring is a unique “one-on-one” relationship between a youth and a caring adult.  Mentoring relationships help youth to appreciate who they are while developing the skills they need to succeed. Mentoring relationships help youth to develop responsibility and work ethics, improve self-esteem, attitudes towards school, improve relationships with peers and family members, and increase communication skills.

Common Characteristics of Children In Need of Mentors

(Adapted from colby Cares About Kids Training Manual)

1. lacks self-confidence

2. fears of taking risks

3. anxious

4. has only a few friends

5. distrustful

6. unable to take frustration in stride

7. very sensitive to criticism

8. moody

9. impulsive

10. inappropriate emotional releases

11. unusally sensitive to noise and light

12. day-dreams

13. emotionally detached

14. lower academic achievement

15. believes chaos is normal

16. boys likely to be hyperactive and unable to concentrate

17. girls likely to complain of illness and pain

18. the “perfect” child

Positive Connections

Developing positive connections with youth is the hallmark of mentoring relationships. Positive connections provide youth with the opportunity to develop a unique personal identity as they relate with others. Several key skills for developing positive connections include active listening skills, encouragement, patience, and praise.

Clear, consistent and Appropriate Boundaries

Clear, consistent, and appropriate boundaries provide youth with a way of making healthy decisions. Laws, rules, regulations, and cultural norms need to be communicated and reinforced throughout the course of the mentoring relationship. One of the most important “rules” that children will need to learn are the importance of healthy interpersonal boundaries, particularly if that youth has been a victim of abuse. Situations like these present a great way to help model appropriate boundaries.

Life Guiding Skills

The mentoring relationship will also provide youth with the opportunity to learn how to set goals, plan, solve problems, make decisions, communicate, resolve and manage conflict, and reflect and grow spiritually.

Nurture & Support

The mentoring relationship will also provide support and nurturance to youth. Children are more likely to thrive if they are engaged in nurturing and supportive relationships with caretakers, friends, and other adults.

Purposes & Expectations

When children have clear purposes and expectations they are more likely to successfully confront the challenges of life, grow, and succeed.

Meaningful Participation

As human beings, we are social by nature. We all need to engage others in meaningful relationships and activities. Meaningful participation includes engaging in healthy activities and plans that are goal directed. In addition, in the context of the Mentor/Mentee dyad, Meaningful Participation also includes having a sense that one’s ideas and contributions are valued and respected even if the two people do not agree.

What is Tutoring?

Tutoring is also not a new phenomenon. Tutoring is the use of another person to aid in the development of skills that improve the performance of a student in an academic area that they find difficult or challenging. A tutor may provide the student with study skills, mnemonic devices for remembering information, different approaches to analyzing/solving problems, and assist them in the development of complex analytical skills. The ability of a tutor to be innovative, creative, consistent, patient, think on their feet and interested in the learning process of a youth are all critical features of a successful Tutor/Tutee relationship. In summary, the Tutor is in the position to inspire a desire to learn, a comfort with challenge, and an ability to think through a problem moving the child from confusion and frustration to a point of understanding.

Foster Care Children & Education

School plays an important role in the lives of most children in foster care. For every child, education is critical to successful transition to adulthood. For children in foster care, positive relationships with supportive teachers, school-based counselors, and classmates can offer a measure of protection from the disruption and uncertainty associated with out-of-home placement. The need of foster children for an education, however, is often neglected by an overtaxed child welfare system that is more concerned with children's physical safety. Numerous studies have suggested that foster children perform significantly worse in school than do children in the general population. Therefore, tutors play a critical role in ensuring that foster children receive the additional help that they need to obtain a proper education and to stay on course with their cohorts.

While not a substitute for teachers and parents, tutors provide academic support and expertise in a setting that is less formal. Tutoring provides an opportunity for the child to receive the individualized attention and support that is not always available in a classroom that may have 30+ students. This individualized support includes, but is not limited to skill building, problem recognition and problem solving, recognition of the need for new approaches, and repetition of skills to ensure success. A great tutor can be a child’s most valuable tool in teaching sustainable skills that supports both skill development and academic success.

Benefits to Mentor/Tutor

¨ Personal Satisfaction

¨ Recognition

¨ Improved interpersonal skills

¨ Deeper understanding of teens and social problems

¨ Skill building

Benefits to Mentee/Student

¨ Exposure to positive role models

¨ Development of future goals and aspirations

¨ Exposure to new experiences and individuals from diverse cultural, socio-economic, and professional backgrounds.

¨ Opportunities for support and guidance

¨ Encouragement of psycho-social growth

¨ Increased levels of confidence and self-esteem

¨ The development of problem solving skills

¨ The ability to look at a problem and develop a “plan of attack”

¨ The ability to tolerate frustration

¨ Encouragement of the learning process

Consistency is Key…

All too often, the children we serve have been moved from home to home and more than likely, they can rattle off a long list of people that have come in and out of their lives. These children have not been fortunate enough to experience the consistency and dependability from adults necessary to develop a sense of trust in others and their environments. Without providing consistency and dependability, mentors and tutors may only serve to perpetuate that pattern. Providing long-term continuity and consistency is considered the single most important component to helping children heal and grow. The consistency of a tutor or mentor can add a level of stability that the mentee/student may have had little opportunity to experience elsewhere. Consistency allows for the mentee/student to know what to expect, thereby enhancing their ability to develop the capacity for trusting relationships.