The main agenda of the mentor is to instill in youth positive values, “mindsets” and solid social skills.
The effective mentor models these very values, mindsets and social skills, especially in building trust over time by keeping commitments and being a consistent and reliable advocate.
In order for you to take the first steps in developing measurable outcomes unique to your own program, here are a few universal qualities that many youth programs strive to achieve:
- Values are what gives a person direction and energy.
- Mindsets are beliefs, and attitudes that make up a person's identity.
- Social skills include compassion, cooperation, teamwork, assertiveness, responsibility and a sense of empathy.
The effective mentor models these very values, mindsets and social skills, especially in building trust over time by keeping commitments and being a consistent and reliable advocate.
In order for you to take the first steps in developing measurable outcomes unique to your own program, here are a few universal qualities that many youth programs strive to achieve:
- Sense of Purpose--a clear vision of where a person wants to go, what they want to accomplish in life and why.
- Efficacy— a person’s sense of being able to deal effectively with a specific task.
- Agency—the capacity to coordinate one’s learning skills, motivations and emotions to attain a goal, resulting in the capacity of individuals to make their own free choices.
- Resilience— the ability to bounce back effectively from setbacks, which in turn creates a buffer against future setbacks.
- Character — the habits we develop, acted upon consistently across a range of situations. “Good character” is the constellation of the habits we develop where we learn how to curtail our base impulses for the sake of our higher ones—acted upon consistently across a range of situations (with thanks to David Brooks).