How to Start Mentoring a Young Person

The main thing stopping people from mentoring is not time. It is not knowing what the first meeting is supposed to be.

Start by deciding what you can sustain, and be pessimistic. An hour a fortnight for two years is worth more than weekly sessions you abandon in April. Commit to the version you would still manage during a bad month at work.

The first few meetings are not for progress. They are for establishing that you exist and will continue to. Expect a young person to be guarded, to give short answers, and to be quietly assessing whether you are another adult passing through. That assessment usually takes three or four meetings, and it is not personal.

Do something rather than sit facing each other. Conversation is easier sideways. Food, a walk, a task, anything that gives both of you somewhere else to look while the useful part happens.

Do not lead with your own story. A young person who has been told about your difficult start within the first month tends to conclude that this is going to be about you.

Tell them what you are not. Say plainly that you are not going to report back on them, and also that you are not going to keep a secret that means somebody could get hurt. Setting that boundary early is what makes real disclosure possible later.

The moment that decides it usually comes when they cancel, or do not show. How you handle that, and whether you are still there the following time without making it a thing, is the entire test.

If you want to do this with JEPF, the volunteer page is the way in. Educators, professionals, students and community members all have somewhere useful to be here.