For young people with long-term, multiple professional adults supporting them, or negative past experiences of mentoring, initiating and sustaining the mentoring relationship can be challenging. In this post Specialist Youth Mentor and Trainer, Elaine Thomas explains here mentoring strategy coined 'The Dance'.
In mentoring we build relationships with young people that resemble the ‘dance’ Teresa May engaged in on her visit to Africa in 2018.
This dance begins at the initiation of the relationship and ends once our intent, ground rules, and testing stages of the relationship have been established.
The dance is a fantastic way to develop strong, sustainable, and productive teacher-student relationships.
Teresa May’s 2018 visit to South Africa and Kenya left her vulnerable for all the world to see and criticise her dancing skills. She, as with all political relationships and engagements, tried to demonstrate to her hosts that she respects, understands their culture, and comes with good intent. This, in mentoring, is what the 'dance' stands for.
In mentoring we build the mentoring relationship with a ‘dance’. This dance begins at the initiation of the relationship and ends once our intent, ground rules, and testing stages of the relationship have been established. This is a fantastic way to develop strong, sustainable, and productive mentor-mentee relationships.
In your first 1:1 session state and discuss your intent;
State
Discuss
State
In stating and discussing our intent we ensure the young person knows we respect and value them. After all, believe or not but we are coming into their space, their lives and not the other way around.
Once the intent has been set and both adult and young person has agreed to co-operate, state and discuss the ground rules;
State
How will confidentiality be maintained
Discuss how you can both;
As professionals, we must ensure young people know that we will maintain their confidentiality and only break it if they or somebody they speak of during the mentoring sessions is seen to be at risk of harm. This way young people will trust they will never be gossiped about in the staff room at lunchtime.
Once the ground rules and intent have been stated and discussed, get ready for the testing stage. If you used the intent and ground rules discussions correctly, the dance will now step up a notch. This part of the dance is maintained by you but led by the young person. Not the other way around. Your role is to be a scaffold and reliable support, whilst the young person gets acquainted with the new responsibilities of this mentor-mentee relationship.
The testing stage of the dance will be successful when you remain integral, never over-promise, always complete your actions on time and to the highest quality. During this stage of the dance, it is very important that you do what I call the 3 P’s to success; Persist, have Patience and Preserve in offering your support.
At this stage of the dance;
Even when it seems like the young person has given up or is not following the ground rules, maintain your role in the dance until they are ready to fully commit to their role, responsibilities, and ultimately their progression. At this point, the dance will end, and you and the young person will be settled in the new mentor-mentee relationship.
As you enter this new year, potentially with a new class or year, do the dance with young people who are seen as hard to reach or with high achievers. It’s up to you.
As Teresa May danced leaving herself vulnerable for all the world to see and criticise. Your colleagues may also criticise you for your commitment and patience in supporting young people, they may have chosen to give up on a long time ago. When everyone around you challenges your efforts, remember your initial conversation with the young person; your intent, and the ground rules made. It is then that you as the responsible and liable adult will demonstrate to the young person, that you respect who they are, what they stand for, and come with good intention; until the end of the young person’s schooling (or until you move on to your next job).
Remember this dance and its stages is simply a test. Once you pass the test, the young person will respect you, trust your guidance and ‘buy into’ your positive and beneficial expectations of them. They will use the support you’ve provided to make significant progression in their academic and or personal life now or in years to come. So, come on! Let’s get dancing!
Written by Elaine Isadora Thomas (The Mentoring Lab, Founcer Ceo)
