Mentorship Q&A

Participants Katarina (K), Chelsea (Ch), Corral (Co) share what mentors are, what makes them a positive influence, their own experiences with mentors and how you can find a mentor. 

Q: What is mentorship to you? 

K: Being provided with guidance in an area of life by someone with a shared lived experience. 

Ch: A mentor is someone who acts as an advisor to someone else. Mentors help an individual grow by offering guidance and advice based on their knowledge/experience. Although a mentor is offering guidance, the relationship can help both people learn new things and grow as individuals and as professionals.

Co: Mentorship to me is the relationship that you have with someone who offers you guidance and advice. It is the intentional, and sometimes unintentional, connection between two people. Mentorship doesn’t always happen between an adult and a youth, sometimes mentorship is between two people in a common age group.  

Q: What makes a good mentor? 

K: Someone who is willing to draw from lived experience, while also acknowledging their mentee’s lived experience and how it differs from their own. Mentors should give their mentee room for growth and be able to give constructive criticism while having empathy. You want this person to build from the experiences you’re sharing with them.

Ch: A great listener who can then provide unbiased advice or opinions based on their experience. Mentors support growth both personally and professionally and can help set realistic goals.

Co: A good mentor is somebody who gives selflessly, without expectation of reciprocity. The mentors that have impacted me were willing to be vulnerable, persistent, and nonjudgmental. Those mentors were willing to stay connected despite life changes and mistakes. The mentors that were effective with me were the ones who were not only willing to listen but to learn and grow – many of them reading and researching to learn and to serve more effectively.  

Q: What can a mentorship help you with? 

K: It can help with achieving goals, furthering your career, acquiring a job, gaining confidence and knowledge , furthering your expertise, gaining a fresh perspective,  feeling validated, and overall just helping you become the best version of yourself.

Ch: A mentorship can be rewarding to both the mentor and the mentee. It’s an opportunity to develop communication skills, network, and considering new ways to approach situations. A mentorship can help you clarify, set smart goals and to achieve those goals. Mentors can expand your network and open doors to new people and opportunities.

Co: Mentorship can help you in all areas of your life: school, work, and your personal life. Mentoring can simply teach you how to love and value yourself or they can do something that seems to be more common with mentoring, like helping you find a school or how to be more effective in your work environment.  

Q: What role has mentorship played in your life?

K: I’ve had the most experience with mentorship through my education. My professors gave me the opportunity to feel like I have a voice and validated my worth in a way that was both supportive and motivating. When these professors learned of my marginalized identities they reminded me of my strengths and that what I see as a “weakness” is a challenge that I can conquer. Because of these experiences, I can broaden my lens when working in the field of social welfare. It’s nice to have an outside perspective from someone who may not know every aspect of your life. It gives them the ability to give unbiased and helpful feedback. 

Ch: A mentorship has given me the opportunity to network both personally and professionally. These relationships helped me develop the skills and expertise I needed to advance my career.

Co: Mentorship has played a significant role in my life since high school. Having a mentor in high school is what brought me to school every day, and got me through it. That mentor also encouraged me to go to college. After being in college she remained a support through my graduation and into adulthood. I also gained so many more mentors while I was in college – professors, counselors, and many other college employees took the time to become great mentors to me. The adults who reached out to me during my time at college helped me get through college, sometimes checking in with me each day, especially when I experienced the loss of my stepdad. The college I attended, thankfully, had a surrounding community who believed in connection as this was something I desperately needed. As a youth going to college from a residential facility, I lacked healthy connection and support. The mentors I had during college, encouraged me to stay in college during some of the most difficult times of my life and I’m so thankful they did. The teacher of the classroom that I taught in during my internship not only mentored me as I taught but has continued to be involved in my life and is an available mentor, even today. As I have started new jobs, my supervisors have become terrific mentors to me, helping me to not only be effective in the work environment but investing in me as a person with real life going on outside of my jobs. Mentorship and connection are something incredibly important to me – it has helped me to feel safe, to grow, to value myself, and ultimately to be able to give back to youth who come from difficult places now.   

Q: How can you find or identify a mentor? 

K: In my opinion the first step to finding a mentor is assessing your support network. Separating who’s a support vs. who could be a potential mentor. Make sure you ask the person you’re considering as a mentor if they’re willing to mentor. Make sure there’s a shared understanding between parties. Create boundaries of what to expect and what’s to come from said mentorship. Start with educational programs. Educators and older students are some of the first mentors you’ll encounter in life no matter your age. You can also look around at people in your life that you already seek guidance from. Look at different support groups in your area, such as religious organizations/churches (if religious).

Ch: First it’s important to know why you want a mentor and what qualities you are looking for in a mentor. Then identify someone who has those qualities. This could be a boss, teacher, coach, co-worker, family member etc. Meet with this person a few times to determine if they are the right fit and then ask! Be clear about how often you want to meet, for how long and make sure that works for them. If you are struggling to find a mentor, you can visit www.mentornewyork.org.

Co: I think finding and identifying mentors is something that has come pretty naturally to me, I seek healthy connection and create space for it in my life. I’ve been privileged to be surrounded by those who are willing to guide me and to become connected. Each mentor I have had hasn’t been through a mentoring program, they have just been adults who were present and willing to be vulnerable and caring.

If you are struggling to find a mentor, you can visit www.mentornewyork.org.
To learn more about mentorship, watch this Ted Talk.