Mentor Mid-Year Training

1. MentorMid-YearTraining

2. You are a support system to your Little… Who is yours? Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arkansas Site-Based Staff: Amanda May, Site-Based Manager Email: amay@bbbsca.org Audry Stanisor, Site-Based Specialist Email: astanisor@bbbsca.org Kenny May, Site-Based Specialist Email: kmay@bbbsca.org 501.374.6661 Call us if you have questions, concerns or just need some advice! Return our calls if we leave a message. We’re required to check in with you regularly! We love to hear what you do with your Little & pass it along to other mentors! We want to thank you for the difference you are making!

3. Scheduling Your Visits 1. Take into account your Little’s school schedule. 2. Try to schedule your visit during a time that’s convenient for both of you! 3. Be flexible when you can since things do come up at schools such as field trips, standardized tests, etc. and this may change your visit time. 4. Your Little may be absent sometimes, but please remember that it is not their fault! 5. If you and your Little’s teacher cannot agree on a good meeting time, please call your BBBS Staff Person to assist you!

4. Developing Rapport & Building Trust One of the best ways to build trust is to help youth accomplish something that is important to them. Mentors must take the time to help youth identify the goal(s) they want to accomplish, view it realistically, break it down into small steps and explore ways of reaching the goal. Building trust takes weeks, sometimes months. • Testing will occur. • Youth may be slow to give their trust, expecting inconsistency and lack of commitment, due to past experiences with adults. The mentor’s trustworthiness and commitment may be tested, particularly when youth are from unstable backgrounds where adults have repeatedly disappointed them. • During the testing period, • Mentors can expect: • Unreasonable requests • Angry or sullen behavior • Phone calls not returned

5. Developing Rapport & Building Trust • Once the mentor passes the test, the real work of the relationship can begin. Mentors should remember that the issue is not whether you like them. Youth are protecting themselves from disappointment. From their perspective, not having a relationship at all seems better than trusting and subsequently losing someone. • These young people may come from families where nothing can be taken for granted. • People living in the household may come and go. • Frequent moves occur during the course of a year. • The phone may be turned on and off. • Remember, predictability breeds trust. The mentor must be consistent and accountable: • On time for meetings • Bring promised information/materials • Follow through on promises and contracts that were volunteered • One misstep, though it may seem small to the mentor, can assume great importance to the youth. Through this difficult process, mentors need to be prepared, to understand, and to refrain from personalizing the experience.

6. Communicating with your Little When young people are allowed to express their feelings, particularly their negative feelings, it offers them a safety valve, which like the safety valve on a boiler, prevents it from exploding. Allowing a youth to release feelings also prevents exploding. If your Little is systematically taught to keep negative feelings bottled up, he or she cannot get them out of his or her system. Young people cannot discriminate and hold back only negative feelings without putting down positive feelings as well. If they are not allowed to express negative feelings in words, they will come out in some form of antisocial action. Youth who are not allowed to express their negative feelings usually grow up to be adults who cannot express their negative feelings either. Give them the freedom to express all of their feelings as a child!

7. Communicating with your Little • Youngsters very desperately want us to • understand how they feel. • Unfortunately, many do not get this understanding from their parents. Not that the parents are cruel or unfeeling. Rather they are not able to let their children know they understand how they feel because nobody taught them how to convey this kind of understanding. • Many parents have not learned the importance of LISTENING to their children and empathizing with them. • Mentors can use communication skills to help their little overcome these barriers. • The essence of the technique is simple. You are doing three things whenever your Little expresses his/her feelings: • Listening carefully to what your Little is saying. • Formulating in your own mind what your Little is expressing. • Repeating back to him/her in your own words the feelings they have just expressed to you.

8. Rules of Communication: 3. Recognize that each individual sees things from a different point of view. 1. Make your communication positive. 4. Be open and honest about your feelings. 2. Be clear and specific. 5. Accept your Little’s feelings and try to understand them. 7. Do not preach or lecture. 6. Be supportive and accepting. 10. Allow time for your Little to talk without interruption; show you are interested in what they’re saying. 11. Get feedback to be sure you are understood. 9. Maintain eye contact. 8. Learn to listen. 12. Listen for a feeling tone as well as for words. 14. Set examples rather than giving advice. 13. Ask questions when you do not understand.

9. Solving Problems vs. Giving Advice The differences between these two approaches are significant; they will affect mentors’ relationships with their Little and Little’s ability to reach their fullest potential. Major Differences between the two: • Giving Advice • Little is passive, possibly resistant • Cuts off further exploration of problem • Often premature • Little doesn’t learn • Can impose mentor’s solution on little’s problem • Does not encourage self-esteem • Little Solving problems • Active Little • Opens lines of communication • Eliminates timing problem • Little learns • Solutions belongs to Little • Fosters self-esteem VS When is Giving Advice Appropriate: If the mentor is an expert in a particular field, the Little may benefit from the mentor’s specific knowledge and advice. If the Little is “stuck” after going through the problem-solving process, mentor can give advice about how to proceed.

10. Asking High Quality Questions • Useful Questions to Clarify Outcomes • What do you really want in this situation? • What is important about this outcome to you? • What are all the ways you can go about getting what you want? • Who/what can you use as resources to get what you want? • Who do you know that has already achieved this outcome, and how do they do it? • Is this outcome possible to achieve? • Can the outcome be initiated and sustained by you? • Is this outcome consistent with who you are? • Considering what it will take and the possible consequences, is the outcome worth doing? • How to Elicit Values, Needs & Wants • What is important about achieving this particular outcome? • How will you know that you have achieved your outcome? What will you see, hear, feel or experience to know that you have achieved your outcome? • If you get what you want, what will this do for you?

11. Confidentiality • Your Little may be unsure whether the feelings and information they disclose to their mentors will be passed on to teacher, parents, etc. Early in the relationship, mentors must provide reassurance: • Nothing that the Little tells the mentor will be discussed with anyone else except the BBBS Staff Person • If the mentor feels it is important to involve another adult, it will be discussed first with the Little. • If there is threat of physical harm to the youth or to others, the mentor must break confidentiality to seek protection for the endangered person (including the threat of suicide).

12. “My Little Asks for Things” 1. Talk to your Little about your time together and explain that hanging out together and being friends doesn’t mean you buy things for each other. 2. Make sure you don’t “give in” and buy/give things to your Little on a regular basis because they may come to expect that and this is not your role. 3. Talk to your BBBS Staff Person so that they can remind your Little that you are not there to buy things for them every week. We talk to your Little on a regular basis and we’re comfortable talking to them about these types of issues. *ACTIVITY SUGGESTION* Talk to your Little about money in a way they can understand and explain to them about budgeting, bills and how money isn’t an unlimited supply. Create a pretend budget with your Little to help them understand the concept better!

13. “What do I do if I can’t visit my Little every week? 1st Step: Is this an ongoing situation or do you just need to miss one week? This is ongoing. I don’t think I can go every week. I just can’t make it one week, but it won’t happen again. 2nd Step: Can you visit your Little 2 times a month? 2nd Step: Call the BBBS Site-Based Staff to let them know and explain to your Little why you can’t be there that particular week. YES NO 3rd Step: Consistency is the key! Call your BBBS Site-Based Staff to discuss other options to prevent your Little from being let down. • 3rd Step: Contact your BBBS Site-Based Staff to let them know and do one of the following: • Switch to our Community-Based Program. • Schedule your closure meeting with your Little before your match is officially closed. (This helps our Littles understand that the closure is not because of something they did.)

14. “My Little seems bored with our activities” 1st Step: Do you do the same activity with your Little every week? YES NO 2nd Step: Do you do schoolwork with your Little for the entire hour or most of it? 2nd Step: Try mixing things up! Kids can get bored easily, especially kids suffering from ADD/ADHD. Do you want to know how to mix things up? YES NO YES No, I have my own ideas. 3rd Step: Ask your Little what their interests are. If they don’t have much to say, name off a few activities to see which ones interest them. *ACTIVITY SUGGESTION* Make a list of activities you both would like to try & cross them off as you do them. You could select a new activity per week or per month to try new!

15. “My Little is in trouble when I visit” 1st Step: Is your Little suspended? YES NO 2nd Step: Was the situation an isolated incident? 2nd Step: Contact your BBBS Site-Based Staff to make them aware. They will contact the school to get details about why your Little was suspended and notify you when your Little has returned to the school. YES NO 3rd Step: Spend part of your visit talking with your Little about their behavior, the incident and discuss ways they could have acted more responsibly/appropriately. Discuss “consequences” with them! 3rd Step: Contact your BBBS Site-Based Staff to set up a meeting with them and the Little’s counselor so that we can develop a plan to assist the Little in improving or eliminating their behavior(s).

16. “My Little’s friends/classmates try to come along with us every time I visit.” 1st Step: Ask your little: “do you want to share our time with your friends/classmates?” YES NO 2nd Step: Ask yourself: “Do my Little’s friends/classmates try to come along with us every week?” 2nd Step: Explain to your Little: “This is special time for just you and me to hang out so your friends/classmates can’t come along every week. Maybe once a month we could invite one of them along if you want to do that, but not every week.” YES NO 3rd Step: Tell the friends/classmates: “This is my special time with your friend and the rule is that it can only be the two of us together.” • 3rd Step: • Let your BBBS Site-Based Staff know • Move to a location where the friends/classmates are not

17. Options for Keeping in Touch with your Little 1. Exchange phone numbers with your Little! 2. Write letters to your Little and provide them with stationary and stamps to write you! 3. Exchange email addresses if your Little has access to it; but do not forward emails to them! *ACTIVITY SUGGESTION* Give your Little a journal to write about what he/she does when the two of you are apart and you can do the same. Then exchange them and read about each others’ adventures the next you’re apart! Stay in touch with your Little over the breaks (winter/spring/summer) by phone or mail! This will help strengthen your friendship!

18. Thank you for taking time to complete This Mentor Mid-Year Training! We hope that you found the information helpful as you continue your journey as a Big Brother or Big Sister! Thank you for all that you do! Please take a moment to let us know you completed this training, by emailing: amay@bbbsca.org