Tag Archives: mentors

Analysis of a Mentoring Program for Youth that Went Online Because of COVID-19: Feedback from Mentors

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I came across this case study, Mentoring in the Time of COVID-19: An Analysis of Online Focus Groups with Mentors to Youth, by Michelle R. Kaufman, Kate Wright, Jeannette Simon, Giselle Edwards, Johannes Thrul and David L. DuBois. It was published: 28 July 2021 in the American Journal of Community Psychology. 

This study explored the experiences of mentors to youth during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six online focus groups (OFGs) were conducted with 39 mentors. Using Facebook groups, moderators posted questions and prompts, and mentor participants responded using textual comments. Mentor help involved routinely connecting with mentees and providing academic support.

Some things that stood out to me:

  • The success of the online mentoring program came largely because these mentors and mentees were already interacting offsite, they already had a relationship, and the mentors were trained about what a meaningful mentoring relationship looked like and about the issues mentees might be facing at home (witnessing domestic violence, substance abuse, etc.). The research found that virtually connecting with mentees can be difficult for mentors without prior, organized planning. All of this is something I learned in researching online mentoring programs for the Virtual Volunteering Project.
  • Mentor concerns for their mentees varied, including mental health, school, family finances, and access to instrumental support and food. In short: mentoring requires much more than uplifting messages.
  • Just as I learned in researching online mentoring programs for the Virtual Volunteering Project and, later, The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, online mentors need specific and ongoing ideas for things to do online with their mentees. One of the most popular pages on the old VV Project web site was a list of ideas for online mentors to do with youth.
  • The digital divide is still VERY much an issue for mentees and their families. Mentees’ access to technology and privacy were the biggest challenges faced.

And then there was this, which was also not surprising: members of the focus groups used for this research said they really wanted an online community to help them learn from each other, give each other support, etc. Excerpt:

Mentor Support Groups

Across the board, participants agreed that an online support group for mentors would be incredibly helpful. Sharing ideas, discussing experiences, and connecting with other mentors about their own stress and anxiety would provide a much-needed outlet and resource during such unprecedented times. Some participants stated the OFGs felt helpful in this way:

Seeing everyone’s responses here has reminded me that we’re not alone in our work/struggles in being a mentor. (female, Illinois)

Others expressed that continuous collaboration with others could provide encouragement and strength, contributing to their own health as well as their effectiveness as mentors.

A support group where we can join together to share thoughts and experiences with one another. What if the group included mastermind sessions where, as a team, we examined our experiences to identify possible solutions and to be reminded that we are not alone? (female, Maryland)

I haven’t been shy about sharing how much I loathe thrown-together online mentoring programs during COVID: most that I’ve seen spent lots of time creating a web site that celebrates the program’s founders, but have scant information on how mentors will be trained, how success will be measured, what mentoring resources they are relying on to guide them, etc. – and nothing on safety. It’s nice to see research that backs up we (Susan Ellis and I) learned back in the 1990s, and continued to promote for decades.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

If you want to dig far deeper into the factors for success in online mentoring programs, those establish meaningful relationships with mentees – not just feel-good quickly “cheer up” messaging for a few minutes ever week but are, rather, based on the proven practices of traditional, face-to-face mentoring initiatives – you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

An incredible volunteer recruitment success story in Texas

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersI have been training regarding volunteer management topics since the late 1990s. A frequently asked question I have gotten in my trainings is, “How do I get more black American men to sign up as volunteers with our program?” This question has come from a variety of nonprofits and schools. When I started training in the 1990s, I had zero ideas – I could not answer this question. I have had a lot of black American women in my audiences, but not men, especially when I was based in Texas, so I decided to ask some of them what their thoughts were in answer to the question. Two said the same thing to me on two different occasions: “I have no idea. When you find out, let me know.” I gathered ideas over the years, but never had the opportunity to put my own ideas into practice.

I did not, and I do not, for a second, believe any particular ethnic group is less inclined to volunteer. I do believe that different groups help their communities in different ways, and a lot of unpaid help to communities isn’t called volunteering – black men in the USA are giving back, but the ways they volunteer often go unrecognized. I also believe different groups face various obstacles to traditional, time-intensive volunteering: conflicting work schedules, family care needs, lack of transportation, lack of information about volunteering and language barriers. When I say lack of information, what I mean is that the volunteer recruitment message via one particular channel often does not reach everyone you want to reach. For instance, if I put volunteer recruitment messages only in the local newspaper, the majority of the community, which does NOT read the local paper, will never see it. If I put the messages only on Facebook, it’s unlikely teenagers will ever see it. When I say language barriers, I don’t always mean people for whom English is not their first language; I mean that certain words don’t mean the same to absolutely everyone. Volunteer doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Community service doesn’t mean the same to everyone. Mentor doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone. So in constructing a message, you have to think about who you are talking to and what words might appeal to them.

With all of that in mind, the recent success of a middle school in Dallas, Texas in recruiting black American men to be mentors in their school has been inspiring and enlightening to me:

According to this web site, 68.4% of the student population at Billy Earl Dade Middle in Dallas identify as African-American – drastically different from that of a “typical: school in Texas which is made up of 12.6% African-American students on average. To qualify for free lunch, children’s family income must be under $15,171 in 2015 (below 130% of the poverty line), and 85.5% of students at Dade Middle School receive free lunch. To qualify for reduced lunch, children’s family income must be below $21,590 annual income in 2015 (185% of the poverty line). 3% of students at Billy Earl Dade Middle receive reduced lunch. As of 2016, the percent of students at this school who pass the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) across all subjects was significantly lower than average for Texas. In short, the student body at Billy Earl Dade Middle School was largely “at risk.”

Parent involvement in a child’s early education is consistently found to be positively associated with a child’s academic performance (Hara & Burke, 1998; Hill & Craft, 2003; Marcon, 1999; Stevenson & Baker, 1987). A 2002 report from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, A New Wave of Evidence, found that students with parents involved in their schools and their school work, no matter their income or background, are more likely to:

  • Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher-level programs
  • Be promoted, pass their classes and earn credits
  • Attend school regularly
  • Have better social skills, show improved behavior and adapt well to school
  • Graduate and go on to post-secondary education

In December 2017, Billy Earl Dade Middle School ran into some difficulty when planning its annual “Breakfast with Dads” event. The school’s community liaison, Ellyn Favors, told the school’s Site Based Decision Making Team that student participation had been low in the past due to young men not having a father/father-figure available to attend the event. Kristina Dove, a community member on the team, decided to post a call for volunteers on Facebook in the hope of finding 50 male mentors to accompany the middle schoolers at the event:

This post was shared by several of her friends, including Stephanie Drenka, a popular blogger and photographer. The post was shared and reshared over and over, more than 125 times by the day of the event. They needed 150 men to sign up. More than 600 men showed up for the event. The event had to be moved from the cafeteria into the gymnasium because of the response. The event was so successful, so powerful, that it was covered by national media and online stories were shared over and over on social media. 

Why was this volunteer recruitment so successful? Based on all that I’ve read:

  • It was a simple way to get involved: just one hour of commitment at the school, with no requirement for anything else.
  • Why their attendance was so important was boiled down to simple, inspiring wording – easy to understand and oh-so-inviting to be a part of.
  • It was so simple to sign up.
  • It was oh-so-simple to share this message, and apparently, everyone on the team did so, to start.
  • The team had strong, trusting connections with key members of the community, so when they shared that message on social media, it reached those key members – who amplified it even more.

Had any one of those bullet points been missing from this equation, I’m not sure the recruitment would have been as successful.

What will happen now?

  • I hope the names and contact info of everyone who signed up is in an excel spreadsheet or database program, for easy reference.
  • I hope a variety of volunteering opportunities are created to entice these men to continue to be involved and accommodate their schedules, opportunities that range from more just-show-up episodic volunteering to more one-on-one, higher responsibility opportunities (and these will, of course, require more training and screening).
  • I hope the school is revisiting its safety policies and ensuring those are being followed.
  • I hope things are being put into place right now so that, in six months and a year from now, all of these activities can be evaluated, and successes can be bragged about and attract much-needed funding for the school so those successes can be amplified.

Congrats to Dade Middle School for getting it right. I’ll aspire to do the same.

Also see:

What I’ve learned as a mentor online

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Since leaving Kabul, Afghanistan in August 2007, after working there for six months for UNDP, I have had the honor and pleasure of mentoring an Afghan co-worker online. She works on a water and sanitation initiative by a government agency, and I consult online with her on social media posts, I edit press releases and project proposals and reports, and I offer advice on her own professional development and career aspirations. I average an hour a week on this relationship – there are some weeks when we don’t interact and others where I need a few hours to read and edit material.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned from this online mentoring experience:

  • That we started off in a face-to-face, onsite relationship helped substantially in setting up this online relationship for success. She already knew me, understood my particular way of communicating and working, and trusted me. Those are three things that take much longer to establish entirely online, even with video conferencing. I have been an online mentor when that hasn’t been the case, and I believe those mentoring experiences were still worthwhile, but I had to do a lot more work to establish trust and find a rhythm in a purely online/remote relationship, and the relationship had to be facilitated by someone onsite, where the person I was mentoring was, to help ensure interactions happened. I just cannot deny that having that already-established real-time/onsite relationship has been a major factor in the success of this long-time virtual volunteering experience with my Afghan colleague.
  • When I don’t respond within 48 hours to a message from her, my mentee worries or, worse, feels neglected. I need to take this relationship as seriously as she does. That means I have to let her know when I am not going to be able to respond because I’m going to be traveling or away from Internet access.
  • I can’t do everything for her – I need to cultivate her skills. That means editing more with questions than corrections. And that’s hard – it would be so much quicker and easier if I just went through and corrected everything like an editor. But this is a mentoring relationship, a learning experience, and I have to keep that foremost in my mind.
  • Personal, non-work stories and photos are essential to cultivating our relationship. I send her links to vacation photos or photos of my garden, for instance. She sends me stories of her family. This keeps us as real people for each other, not just text in an email.
  • I make absolutely sure I don’t say anything that can’t be backed up with cited sources. Rumors are rampant in Afghanistan, and it’s very important that I show, by example, how to fact-check.
  • Knowing the culture in which my mentee/protogé is living has also been essential to maintaining this relationship. I’m no expert on Afghanistan or Islam, but I lived in Kabul for six months, I have read up on Afghan history (and continue to do so), I have read the Koran and continue to read Islamic scholars and others about Islam, including those I strongly disagree with, and I know there are a range of viewpoints by Muslim women about their religion. That’s been helpful in preventing me from making various cultural missteps – though I won’t for a minute say that still doesn’t happen. Knowing the culture has helped me know what is possible and what is NOT possible for her regarding activities online, travel and interacting with others, and to remember just how fragile reputations for women can be in that part of the world.
  • I try to know what’s going on in her country and her city. That’s not easy, as news about Afghanistan doesn’t show up in any newsfeed. Major news outlets do cover what’s happening in Afghanistan, but I have to go looking for it. There’s so much more to Afghanistan than bombings and oppression of women. For instance, I found a story that mentioned a Rotary Club in Kabul, and I emailed my friend to let her know about it. She’s been going to the meetings now for almost a year because I let her know about the meetings.
  • I ask her questions about her views, her life, etc. I make sure she knows, regularly, that I want to hear from her. And after those stories, I respond in a way that shows that I read what she says and value it.
  • Online mentoring is not micro-volunteering. I cringe when anyone says it’s possible to mentor a person, especially a youth, in a meaningful, impactful way by just spending a few minutes a month sending some encouraging words. Mentoring takes time, thought and careful action – it can’t be done on the fly while you are waiting for your coffee.

vvbooklittleSusan Ellis and I go into great detail about cultivating online relationships in virtual volunteering and the keys to success for online mentoring projects and programs in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. I’ve been researching online mentoring since the 1990s, and helped design programs for America Online and People Magazine back in that decade, as well as an elementary school-based program for an Austin, Texas school. I’ve been involved as a mentor with others since then and I keep track of online mentoring programs because of their uniqueness among virtual volunteering activities: the high-responsibility nature of the programs, the essential requirement of building trust, the added safety procedures needed for such, etc. Our book attempts to document all of the best practices for using the Internet to support and involve volunteers, including in online mentoring relationships with adults or children, and our recommendations come from the more than three decades that these practices have been happening. The book is available both in traditional print form and in digital version from Susan’s company, Energize, Inc.

Also see:

Safety in virtual volunteering

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Between my Google Alerts and those whom I follow on Twitter, I see a story at least once a day about the engagement of online volunteers. I put the most interesting or unique ones on the Virtual Volunteering Wiki. It’s so wonderful to see virtual volunteering oh-so-mainstream. I’m not at all surprised: by the 1990s, it was already impossible to track every organization involving online volunteers – there were so many! If there is anyone out there still talking about any form of virtual volunteering – digital volunteers, micro volunteering, crowd sourcing, ework, etc. – as “new”, you have to wonder: have they been under a rock?

But I do have a concern: many of these virtual volunteering initiatives don’t seem to have thought about online safety. Too many, in my opinion, are focused on creating a really complex, feature-rich web site for volunteers to use to sign up and contribute their time and skills, but not thinking about risk management – protecting clients and volunteers.

As Susan Ellis and I say in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, and I say in any workshop related to virtual volunteering:

Relatively speaking, the Internet is no more or less safe than any other public space, such as a school, faith community, or sports stadium. Fears of exploitation, abuse, or exposure to sexually-explicit or violent material should not prevent an agency from engaging in virtual volunteering, any more than such fears should prevent the involve­ment of volunteers onsite. There is risk in any vol­unteering, online or face-to-face. The challenge is to minimize and manage such risk. (page 112)

Do you have to interview every candidate for online volunteering? Do you have to check professional references on every candidate for online volunteering? Do you have to conduct a criminal background check on every online volunteer? No, you don’t have to do any of these things IF the tasks they will do as volunteers don’t warrant such – they aren’t going to work with clients, they aren’t going to work with other online volunteers and know their names, they aren’t going to have access to confidential information, they won’t have access to any online systems in such a way that they could even accidentially harm such, etc. Again, back to a quote from The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.:

Every organization will have different interview­ ing and screening methods based on what services volunteers provide and its workplace culture. Even for volunteers working onsite, the issues involved in volunteering for a beach cleanup or simple clerical work are not the same as issues involved in volun­teering to tutor young children or manage an orga­nization’s computer systems.

The same is true for online volunteers. Your screening approach will be different for a volun­teer designing a Web page than for one creating a private online area where your staff and clients will interact and the online volunteer will have far more access to client contact and other confidential information. (page 41)

If an online volunteering role does warrant some degree of screening – and not all do, but most do – then you have to decide how much there will be, and how it will be conducted. First and foremost is that you must follow the law. For instance, many states require a criminal background check on any volunteers that will work with children one-on-one. A volunteer who will come to a classroom one time to speak about his or her job may not be required by law to undergo a criminal background check, but someone who will talk with a child, one-on-one, even if they will always be in a room with other adults and children, probably is required by law to undergo such – apply the same principles to online volunteers in determining what screening is required. Should the online volunteering candidate be interviewed? If the person is new and is doing any task that requires at least some expertise – web page development, translating text from one language to another, moderating an online discussion group, designing a newsletter, editing a brochure, etc. – yes, absolutely! Many more tips for screening online volunteers to ensure they really can do the task that they have signed up for, and have the time to do so, can be found in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

My favorite resource on screening volunteers, online or offline, that will work with clients in any capacity, is free to download: Screening Volunteers to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse: A Community Guide for Youth Organizations. Point one under the section on what to do before the organization starts screening volunteers is this: “Develop criteria that define how screening information will be used to determine an applicant’s suitability.” That will be different for every organization, depending on their mission and the work volunteers will do. You have to think about not only worst-case scenarios – screening out people that might sexually and/or financially-exploit clients, other volunteers, etc. – but also about people who don’t have the skills necessary for the work, people who don’t have the temperament for the challenges, and people who really don’t have time to volunteer, as all of those scenarios, while not criminal, can be harmful to your organization and those it serves.

You also have to clearly define what behavior is inappropriate on the part of online volunteers, how you will communicate that to volunteers, the consequences of inappropriate behavior, and how you are going to be aware of such behavior. As we note in the guidebook, a way to absolutely ensure safety in online interactions between volunteers and clients is to set up a private sys­tem through which all messages are sent, reviewed by staff before they can be read by the intended recipient, stripped of all personal identifying information by the moderator, archived for the record, etc., but that such a system can ruin an attempt to create trusting, caring relationships between volunteers and clients (and we provide a powerful example of how such a super-safe system ended up almost derailing an online mentoring program). Your efforts to ensure safety must balance with your program goals.

Among the many suggestions we make in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, regarding online safety is this:

The best way to ensure that clients and vol­unteers are having positive online experiences is for program staff to stay in frequent touch with both, to encourage an atmosphere of open communication. Also, it is fundamental that you establish and clearly (and frequently) communicate policies regarding online exchanges between volunteers and clients. (page 114)

Clearly, explicitly inform applicants for volunteering about your organization’s policies and procedures regarding safety, abuse prevention, and all aspects of risk management, as well as circumstances that would lead to a volunteer being dismissed. Be explicit. Also share your code of conduct or statement of ethics in writing. Ask applicants if they have a problem with any of the policies and procedures, code of ethics, etc.; such a discussion will help you find out if applicants are uncomfortable with any aspect of such, which can be an indicator that they are an inappropriate candidate. Even though it is not legally binding, require applicants to sign a document that states they understand and agree to adhere to your policies and procedures and code of conduct; again, this can help you find out if an applicant is uncomfortable with any aspect of such, which can be an indicator that they are an inappropriate candidate. It also affirms to volunteers that you make the safety of your volunteers, staff and clients a priority, which can encourage new volunteers to take such precautions with the utmost seriousness.

vvbooklittleThere are lots more suggestions and specifics about risk management, online safety, ensuring client confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book. Suggestions for risk management are found throughout the book, in the chapters regarding developing and revising policies, designing assignments for online volunteers, interviewing and screening online volunteers, orienting and training online volunteers, basic techniques for working with online volunteers, and online volunteers working directly with clients, as well as the chapter written for online volunteers themselves. Our advice is based on both virtual volunteering practices, including micro volunteering and crowdsourcing, and the proven fundamentals of onsite, face-to-face, traditional volunteer management.

Also see:

Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers

Why don’t they tell? Would they at your org?

With volunteers, see no evil?

Safety of volunteers contributes to a shelter closing

volunteer managers: you are NOT psychic!

Photos & videos by & of volunteers online – privacy issues?

April 13, 2020 Update: Another new video! I lead virtual volunteering workshops in the 1990s & got big pushback from nonprofits asserting that an online program could never be safe. Now, many programs are launching brand new virtual volunteering programs, bringing online volunteers together with people in senior living homes, or with teens, and on and on. And that change is great, however, these programs need to think about safety! My newest video has more info and is about five-minutes long.

November 16, 2020: The UK Safer Internet Centre is where you can find online safety tips, advice and resources to help children and young people stay safe online. Excellent resource not just for programs in the UK, but ANYWHERE – especially online mentoring, online tutoring and online visiting program where volunteers will assist remote clients.

2021 updates:

Safety in Service Delivery/Client Support by Online Volunteers. Includes guidance regarding online meetings.

Your right to turn away volunteers who won’t adhere to safety measures (& your right to refuse to volunteer at an unsafe program)

My blogs & web pages re: safety in volunteer engagement