We have purposefully designed our program in a way that allows for great latitude, personal creativity, and inspiration in how you go about your efforts to determine what your mentee most needs. Our role is to give you the tools, rules, and framework; our hope is that you own your direction and govern your work here forward in the way you feel is best. Within that freedom, we do have expectations that allow us to responsibly track and verify that the program is accomplishing its intended purposes.
Mentors are responsible to do the following:
- Contact your assigned family within a week of being assigned.
- There is no exact amount of time that mentors are required to interact with their assigned mentee. The dynamic and frequency of interaction is determined by the partnership.
- Mentors will fill out a Quarterly Mentor Report. This allows us to check progress and receive feedback on how we can better support our mentors and their families.
- Mentors will fill out an Annual Mentor Report form from the website once they have reached the year mark with their assigned mentee family or if they determine to end the mentorship sooner.
- Once you learn about your assigned family’s situation, take time to research classes, community events, trainings, or things that would benefit your mentee in their particular situation. For example: if your mentee struggles to provide for his or her family, you may consider researching community classes on money management, budgeting, starting a business, or developing a marketable skill.
- Mentors need to sign the “Confidentiality Form” and “Code of Ethics.”
Hand in Hand Mentorship is required by state and federal privacy laws to protect the privacy of our clients and their families. In addition, we comply with these laws to establish a relationship of trust among those we serve. It is our rule that no employee or volunteer may share confidential information about our mentees with anyone outside of the agency without authorization from the mentee family.
If observed, volunteers are required to report a crime, child abuse, or neglect to appropriate state and law enforcement agencies.