Training for Mentors

Training matters. Research has found that good preparation, and strong pre-match plus post-match training creates more effective and fulfilling mentoring relationships that last. Below you can explore our training offerings for mentors. Not seeing a training you want to bring to your mentors? MENTOR Virginia also provides custom trainings upon request. Click here to learn more about pricing for training services. Please contact Tamice Spencer-Helms, Learning Facilitator/Curriculum Developer, for more information or to book a training. 

Connect Focus Grow

This training is appropriate for mentors, supervisors, and young adults ages 14-24

Connect Focus Grow is a specialized training for mentors, young adults, and supervisors (when relevant) that ensures youth have access to a web of support from caring adults and can form positive relationships in the workplace. Throughout the country, this training has been used with major corporations such as Taco Bell and Starbucks to help retain entry level employees and empower young adults to advocate for themselves.  

Young adults learn to focus on what they need to grow both personally and professionally. Supervisors learn how to use a “mentoring mindset” to build trust with youth while managing them as employees. Mentors help youth build their web of mentoring relationships in the workplace and beyond.

Some of the topics covered include: conversation starters, setting goals, ladder of inference, giving feedback, developmental relationships framework, checklist for one-on-ones, breaking down unconscious bias, active listening, networking, storytelling with purpose, and navigating changing circumstances.

This training is great for workplace mentoring programs, as well as any mentoring programs working with young adults ages 14-24.

To book a Connect Focus Grow training, email Tamice at tamice@archive.mentorva.org.

New Mentoring Training

This training is appropriate for current mentors, program staff, and anyone interested in improving their mentoring or youth development skills for working with youth ages 5-18

New Mentor Training allows new mentors to review techniques and frameworks to help prepare them to be the most effective mentors possible. MENTOR Virginia utilizes a specialized curriculum for New Mentor Trainings that combines the latest research in mentoring and youth development best practices. 

Participants in a New Mentor Training will gain a solid understanding of: 

    • A mentor’s role in a young person’s life

Relationship-building techniques and stages of relationship development

  • Communicating and setting boundaries with young people 
  • Positive youth development and trauma-informed practices in mentoring

 

To receive New Mentor Training as an individual or for your program, two options are available:

  1. MENTOR Virginia hosts monthly New Mentor Trainings that are open to the public.

Mentoring programs can send up to three mentors from their program per month to one of our New Mentor Trainings at no cost. If your program needs to train a larger number of mentors, please see option two below.

  • Check our events page for upcoming training opportunities.
  1. MENTOR Virginia can host a private New Mentor Training for mentoring programs upon request.

Private New Mentor Trainings can be provided virtually or in-person. Content of private trainings may be customizable upon request. To book or inquire about a private training, please contact Tamice at tamice@archive.mentorva.org.

Everyday Mentoring Training

MENTOR Virginia is excited to partner with The Mentoring Partnership of Southwest Pennsylvania to bring to you Everyday Mentoring®, a new curriculum and toolkit that prepares adults to positively impact all the youth and young adults in their lives.

Everyday Mentoring® recognizes that adults everywhere can make a mentoring difference for youth in their daily lives. Parents, teachers, youth sports coaches, librarians, crossing guards—anyone who interacts regularly with young people can use Everyday Mentoring® to help youth feel known, recognized, cared for and supported.

To receive Everyday Mentoring® Training as an individual or for your program, two options are available:

  1. MENTOR Virginia hosts Everyday Mentoring® trainings that are open to the public.
  • Check our events page for upcoming training opportunities.
  1. MENTOR Virginia can host a private Everyday Mentoring® training for organizations upon request.

Private Everyday Mentoring® trainings can be provided virtually or in-person. To book or inquire about an Everyday Mentoring® training, please contact Tamice at tamice@archive.mentorva.org.

Mentoring Youth Impacted by Opioid Use and Misuse Training

This training is appropriate for mentors and program staff working with youth impacted by the opioid crisis

This workshop is a three-part series that includes the following topics: Understanding Substance Use and Its Impact, Overview of Trauma and Neurobiology, and Mentoring Youth. MENTOR Virginia offers six-hour trainings that cover all three parts of the series, as well as two-hour trainings on any of the individual parts of the series.

In the Mentoring Youth Impacted by Opioid Use and Misuse section of the training, participants will learn:

  • How to apply lessons about substance misuse and trauma to mentoring practice
  • How developmental mentoring can be used to increase protective factors, developmental assets, and social emotional learning for youth
  • Culturally sensitive mentoring approaches
  • Trauma-informed approaches to mentoring including how to avoid re-traumatization
  • Key factors for trauma-informed relationship development with an emphasis on timing of conversations and actions with youth

To book a Mentoring Youth Impacted by Opioid Use and Misuse Training, email Tamice at tamice@archive.mentorva.org.

Additional Trainings Available Upon Request

MENTOR Virginia offers customized trainings for mentors on a range of topics, including:

  • Best Practices for E-mentoring
  • Virtual Engagement & Safety in E-mentoring
  • Trauma-Informed Mentoring
  • Social-Emotional Learning in Mentoring
  • Racial Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion in Mentoring
  • How to Talk About Race & Equity with Mentees
  • Combatting White Saviorism in Mentoring
  • Mentoring LGBTQ+ Youth
  • Mentoring Refugee/Newcomer Youth
  • Becoming a Better Mentor

For more information on our training offerings for mentors, to book a training, or to discuss custom training options, please email Tamice at tamice@archive.mentorva.org.