MentorMap Tools

Why Reinvent the Wheel?
Many school-based mentoring program coordinators find themselves charting unfamiliar territory when trying to develop forms and information materials for their programs. MentorMap makes the job easy by providing many pre-developed and proven templates already in use by hundreds of school districts. Here are some ready-to-use examples available through MentorMap that can be adapted for use by any school-based mentoring program.

School District Infrastructure – Sample Templates
Readiness assessments help determine if a school district is ready to implement a school-based mentoring program.

Program job descriptions help ensure the right person is selected for key positions.
• Program Coordinator
• School Building Connector

Marketing – Sample Templates
Carefully thought-out marketing plans, along with the creation of a strong brand identity are essential to support the launch of a school-based mentoring effort.

Publicity strategies and tactics should be integral to any plan. Media communications include electronic or mailed press releases and media advisories.

Recruitment – Sample Templates
The steady recruitment of committed and capable volunteers is crucial to the success of any school-based mentoring program. A preliminary recruitment plan sets the direction and helps get the ball rolling.

Keep on track with a prospect and recruitment log. And make every effort to develop local business and civic partners that can be excellent sources of volunteers. Employer Partner Agreements help professionalize the agreement.

Mentor Processing – Sample Templates
Determining appropriate background screens and establishing firm guidelines for processing applicants are crucial for the safety of students, volunteers and school-based mentoring programs.

As a first step, every program must have a comprehensive volunteer mentor application.

A volunteer interview with consistent questions for every potential mentor is important in determining an applicant’s suitability.

Training – Sample Templates
Compehensive and professional volunteer training assures a high quality mentoring experience for both the young person and the mentor. Upon completion of the training, volunteers should sign a Standards of Conduct form based on the training before they begin mentoring.

Matching – Sample Templates
Making appropriate matches is key to the longevity of student/mentor relationships. Tools to help create strong matches include student referral forms for teachers and volunteer request forms.

A helpful tool for volunteers during the initial meeting with their mentees is the Getting to Know You Survey.

Mentor Tracking and Documentation

Recognition and Retention – Sample Templates
Recognition of volunteers is a valuable mentor retention and ongoing recruitment strategy, as is regular communication with mentors starting with a new school year volunteer letter and closing with a year-end thank you.

Risk Management

Program Evaluation – Sample Template
Why evaluate? Evaluation is vital to the success of any mentoring program. The goal is to determine whether the initiative is achieving positive results and meeting national best practice standards. It also helps shape mentoring efforts as the program grows.