Team Durham Mentoring Guidelines

Team Durham Alumni Sport Mentoring Scheme: (Club and Team Captains)

Introduction and guidelines for mentors and mentees

Introduction

I am delighted to welcome you to the Team Durham Alumni Sport Mentoring Scheme. This booklet is provided to mentors and to Durham University sports club captains or team captains (mentees). We believe the Scheme offers both mentors and mentees huge opportunities and we hope that this booklet will help to get you off to the best possible start in your mentoring relationship.

Whether you are a mentor or mentee, we hope that this booklet will answer any questions you may have. If, however, you are uncertain or have any questions or concerns (whether now or during any mentoring relationship), please contact us as soon as possible. The main contact for this purpose is Chantelle Dingley (chantelle.dingley@durham.ac.uk or tel: 0191 334 2278), the co-ordinator of the Scheme for Team Durham.

I hope that you will participate in the Scheme and find it valuable, as so many others have done in the past.

Dr Peter Warburton OBE Director of Sport Tel: 0191 3342175 Email: p.a.warburton@durham.ac.uk

Background and objectives The Alumni Sport Mentoring Scheme pairs Durham University sports club captains or team captains with alumni who have participated in sport while at Durham and have successful careers in industry or business.

The objection of the Scheme is that mentees, through their inter-action and link with a mentor, will be in a position to: discuss with their mentor the challenges of being a leader in university sport, airing problems as they arise share with their mentor the difficulties of balancing the time commitments of sport and academic work It is also a fundamental part of the Scheme that mentees:

identify their skills and experience, including those arising from their role in sport, with a view to making decisions about their future career discuss career choices and how best to take the first step towards a chosen career discuss how to reflect their skills and experience in their cv.

*Suggested areas of discussion are on Page 5 of this booklet

What is a mentor?

A mentor is a person with considerable experience who is offering to provide his or her mentee with the benefit of that experience for certain purposes.

The purpose of the Scheme is that each mentor assists their mentee with meeting the challenges of being a leader in university sport and using that mentee’s skills and experience in starting a career.

In order for a mentoring relationship to work, the each mentee should feel able to discuss openly with his or her mentor the challenges and difficulties of being a club or team captain and of thinking about a future career and should be open to the suggestions or advice offered by the mentor.

The relationship between mentor and mentee is very much mentee-centred. It should focus on the mentee’s professional and personal development The emphasis is on enabling and empowering the mentee to take charge of their own development and their environment.

Mentors need to listen effectively and with empathy, to adopt an understanding and nonjudgemental approach and to develop ideas through skilled questioning.

The role of a mentor is: to listen to question, to elicit facts to pass on information, knowledge and experience to provide views to offer different perspectives to offer support and encouragement to draw on their own experience, when appropriate to confront and challenge issues and conclusions to take the lead – at least in the early stages of the relationship There is no single model for a mentoring relationship: each relationship will be different and will depend on the personalities of the mentor and the mentee, and on the particular challenges faced by the mentee. As a general rule, however, mentees will find that the more they put into the mentoring relationship (by sharing their development, thinking and worries with their mentor), the more they will get out of it.

On the mentor side, a key part of the role is ensuring that your mentee feels comfortable discussing their role and its problems with you. This requires an openness and confidence which is an essential part of the mentoring relationship.

How should you approach the Mentoring Scheme?

MENTORS If you are a mentor, you should seek to ensure that your mentee feels at ease and is willing to “open up” to you. You will be provided with background information about your mentee and, at your first meeting, you will have the opportunity, in discussion with your mentee, to learn more about him or her. Be willing to listen and understand how they are approaching their role as a club or team captain and how this fits into their academic studies and future plans.

Once you have understood what your mentee is doing or how they are feeling, be free with your suggestions or advice. It is not the role of the mentor to take decisions and it is not necessary for you to be pro-active in providing any tangible assistance; your role is to be a sounding board and the source of the “pearls of wisdom” that may well make an enormous difference to your mentee’s ability to deal with the issues facing him or her. *You might, by way of example, cover the following in your discussions with your mentee: 1. SPORT What are their challenges as Team Captain?

How do they communicate with their coach and team?

How are they managing their team dynamics?

Are they getting support from their executive committee?

Are they managing the demands of Team Captain as set out in the Team Durham Contract [(a copy of which will be sent to each mentor)]?

2. ACADEMIC PROGRESS What do they enjoy about their course?

How is their assignment/dissertation preparation going?

How are they planning their time?

What are their academic aspirations/achievements?

3. CAREER What are their career aspirations?

Do they understand the opportunities available to them?

What do they need to achieve to get into their chosen career?

How are they going about investigating possible careers or possible employers?

Do they have any contacts which might be used to obtain more information or work experience-type placements?

In discussions with your mentee you might cover the following to assist their thinking: your own background and your work and career path examples from your own experience of how to deal with particular situations or problems problem solving techniques and approaches to analysing and facing problems

the transition from being an undergraduate to starting a career and entering the world of work identifying suitable careers taking account of your mentee’s skills and experience and their preferences approaches to planning a successful job search strategy.

In addition to helping your mentee, we hope that your experience as a mentor should help you: to re-engage with Durham University through sport to gain an understanding of the issues facing students, particularly those participating at a senior level in university sport and to share your own knowledge and experience gained at university and afterwards.

MENTEES If you are a mentee, you should be willing to discuss openly with your mentor your background and how you have come to be a club or team captain. You should then feel able to discuss your worries or concerns about your role and the parts of it that you feel are particularly challenging or which you feel that you are not doing as well as you might. Treat your mentor as a sounding board: somebody you can share ideas with, partly to organise your own thinking, partly to obtain their thinking or views so that you can take these into account when moving forward. Your mentor will not solve problems for you or tell you what to do; what they should do is provide you with their own thinking, based on their experience and the information you provide to them.

In interaction with your mentor you should: listen seek to clarify your understanding share your thinking review and reflect on yourself be open to changing your assumptions consider different perspectives develop and manage a career plan take responsibility for your own development make decisions to maximise the outcomes of the mentoring.

What is outside the scope of the Mentoring Scheme?

The main purpose of the Scheme is to provide mentees with assistance in their role as a club or team captain, taken together with the way this fits in with their academic commitments and future career prospects. Mentors are not intended to deal with other issues regarding life at university or personal life. Pastoral issues should continue to be dealt with by the mentee’s College tutor and academic concerns discussed with their academic tutor. The Mentoring Scheme is specifically targeted at the role of being a leader of university sport, with all the commitments, responsibilities and pressures that brings.

As a mentor should you encounter a problem which you may feel is out of this scope please contact Chantelle Dingley on 0191 3342278 to assist with signposting the issue to the appropriate university support.

Other material Mentors will be sent details of the role of a club or team captain, so that they have an idea of the scope of the role (encompassing the development of performance, participation and community outreach). Discussions between mentors and mentees should address each aspect of the role.

How should mentors and mentees communicate?

The programme envisages that mentors and mentees will meet at the kick-off dinner on the 10th October at Clifford Chance and then at a dinner on the 15th December. It is also intended that there will be an overall discussion between each mentor and mentee prior to the end of November and prior to the end of March. Ideally these should be face to face but could also be done over the phone.

During the rest of the programme mentors and mentees should be in touch as frequently as appropriate. It is envisaged that this will be by e-mail (so mentors and mentees should agree which is the best e-mail address to be used for each of them) or, if preferred, by telephone. Mentees are encouraged to provide some sort of up-date to their mentor once every two weeks and a minimum of once a month.

Code of conduct We hope that most of this is common sense and a matter of courtesy between mentor and mentee.

A key part of the relationship is that information provided by your mentor or mentee is kept confidential. This is an essential part of building the mentoring relationship.

In dealing with each other mentors and mentees should maintain a professional relationship, responding to communications as promptly as possible (within the limitations of a mentor’s other commitments) and dealing with each other in a business-like manner.

Mentees are reminded that their conduct will reflect on Durham University and Team Durham and that it is important that they: • • • • • • •

attend all pre-arranged meetings participate in pre-arranged calls honour any other commitments they make to their mentor follow-up matters suggested by their mentor dress appropriately for all meetings are punctual do not take their mentors for granted – mentors are extremely busy people and the time they contribute to the Scheme is provided for your benefit and on a voluntary basis.

Dealing with problems If problems arise in a mentoring relationship, it is essential that Team Durham are informed of this so that appropriate action may be taken. Although care is taken in matching mentors and mentees, problems may, in some cases, be unavoidable. In such a case please notify Chantelle Dingley at the earliest possible opportunity on chantelle.dingley@durham.ac.uk.

What happens next?

Once you have agreed to become a mentor or mentee, the key first step is for you to meet your mentee/mentor. Hopefully you will do this at the kick-off evening in London. After that it is up to each mentor and mentee to develop the relationship using the calendar of events and reporting structure as a guide. It is important to stay in touch and mentees are encouraged to provide regular up-dates to their mentor (in addition to raising any particular problems or concerns they may have).

Mentors are also encouraged to respond to communications from their mentee and to be open to discuss issues with them.

You will be receiving the Calendar of events and reporting, setting out the detail of the proposed activity over the year. As a means of monitoring the relationship, you are asked to submit to Team Durham (chantelle.dingley@durham.ac.uk) a very short report of progress at the end of November and at the end of March.

If you decide to become involved in the Mentoring Scheme, you will be doing so on the basis and terms set out in this booklet.