Imagine Hope: May 2020

Growing Things: Volunteer Appreciation and the Mentoring Relationship

Imagine Hope is a one-year blogging project being undertaken by Caitlin Newby as she engages with Imagine LA at the deepest levels and shares her experiences and reflections.

April was Volunteer Appreciation Month, and after going through the training session for Imagine LA’s Mentorship Program, I have a massive appreciation for all that the volunteers at Imagine LA do!

On a quiet Saturday at the beginning of April, I was onboarded into the program through a virtual training session led by Vanessa Monroy, a Family Team Manager at Imagine LA. Over the course of several hours, Vanessa illustrated to me and my fellow inductees the journey that a family goes on before working with an Imagine LA mentorship team, as well as our role and responsibilities as mentors.

In discussing our role, Vanessa shared two definitions of mentorship—the traditional definition, and one that Imagine LA prefers to use. I too prefer their definition:

Mentorship is a collaborative relationship between individuals who desire to share their experiences and knowledge with one another. They form an ongoing friendship teaching EACH OTHER about the life they have experienced and helping each other grow.

Vanessa repeatedly brought us back to the fundamental principles of collaboration and growth. She told us that the mentors who walked out of the program happiest were those that “stuck it through,” rolled with the punches,” and “grew with the growing pains” of the mentoring relationship.

Understanding the appropriate posture of mentorship—or how you view and position yourself in a mentoring relationship—was a significant part of the mentorship training. Though we, as mentors, are meant to serve as a support and accountability partner to our mentee, we should enter the relationship with openness and respect—not set goals or expectations for oneself or one’s mentee. It was helpful to be reminded that this undertaking is unlike other, more traditional mentorship relationships—we are not teachers or bosses or counselors, but friends.

Vanessa closed the training session with a beautiful metaphor for mentorship. Keeping in line with the theme of growth, she told us to “think like a gardener and less like a carpenter” in our mentoring relationships by focusing on planting seeds of change which we may or may not see grow during our 12 to 18 months with our mentee. We are there to empower someone else’s progress, however long it may take.

Being a mentor is a serious undertaking; but for those who understand the commitment required and the positive impact that a mentoring relationship can have, becoming a mentor should be an exciting prospect—it certainly is for me!

Caitlin Newby is a tutor and teacher from Los Angeles. She recently returned to her hometown after six years in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she studied for her PhD in Creative Writing. She loves swimming, crossword puzzles, and her dachshund Oliver!