“Students are entitled to welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environments that respect diversity and nurture a sense of belonging and a positive sense of self.” Preamble to the amended Alberta School Act.
The Teen Mentoring Toolkit is a resource designed for schools and community organizations choosing to engage students in creating a welcoming, caring, respectful and safe community through positive mentoring relationships. This toolkit identifies key areas for consideration as well as evidence-based practices, strategies and tools for planning, implementing and evaluating a quality teen mentoring program. The information can be adapted by youth-serving organizations partnering with a school or running a teen mentoring program within a community-based setting.
Alberta Education believes in creating positive, welcoming and supportive schools, free of bullying, where every student feels as if they belong.The June 1, 2015 amendments to the School Act outlines the student, parent and school board’s responsibility to contribute to a welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environment that respects diversity and fosters a sense of belonging.1 These environments support healthy relationships and facilitate student learning. This dynamic toolkit provides you with the preliminary resources needed to start your own Teen Mentoring program. The toolkit is intended to be a starting point and will supply you with the key elements needed to develop a quality mentoring program. The toolkit and its contents will need to be adapted to your specific school community and its unique strengths, challenges and values.
This toolkit has been developed through a collaboration between the Society for Safe & Caring Schools & Communities and the Alberta Mentoring Partnership and is a work in progress that will change and improve through feedback from schools, mentors, and mentees. We welcome you to contact us with any comments or suggestions.
Contents of the Teen Mentoring Toolkit:
This toolkit is designed using evidence-based standards for practice. Helpful information, tips and tools can be found in each section.
- Teen Mentoring: Defines the concept of Teen Mentoring and its many benefits for mentors, mentees and school communities. Provides resources to communicate key messages and promote teen mentoring.
- Planning Your Program: Assists in developing a structured teen mentoring program by considering program goals and outcomes, guiding questions, a program logic model, guiding questions, and other important program details.
- Recruitment: Provides tools and tips for recruiting appropriate mentors and mentees for your program.
- Screening & Selection: Provides tools and tips to effectively screen and select participants for program success and safety.
- Training: Provides resources for training and preparing mentors and mentees for their roles.
- Matching: Provides tips for creating quality mentor/mentee matches.
- Match Meetings & Activities: Provides ideas and resources for planning fun, goal-driven match meetings and activities.
- Monitoring & Support: Shares best practices for the ongoing support and supervision of mentor/ mentee relationships.
- Match Closure: Provides information and tools to facilitate bringing matches to a closure on a positive note.
- Reflecting, Learning, & Improving: Explores ways to integrate reflection, learning and continuous improvement into a teen mentoring program.
- Additional Resources: Lists websites, resources, guides, handbooks and tools related to teen mentoring and youth development. Blank tools and fillable forms referenced in each section of the toolkit are also gathered here for easy access.