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Resources for Mentors
We are pushing hard to connect each boy with a mentor. What resources are available to hand to a mentor to help them understand what we expect of them and what their role is supposed to be. Basically a mentors handbook. this is especially important for mentors that are not a part of the weekly ministry, such as a man from the church, uncle, etc.
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19 Replies
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Mentors
Congratulations! You’ve been chosen to serve as a Battalion Mentor. To fulfill this exciting experience you should:
Commit to helping that young man grow spiritually and being an example for him. Seek to have a positive impact on his life. Developing this relationship is as valuable as the achievement material he is working on. This will take time, require sensitivity, and demand plenty of attention.
Work with him until he completes and entire unit. It will take 2-6 months. Meet with him at least 7 or 8 times for about 10-20 minutes each. Augment these times with informal meetings and phone calls.
Look at Adventure Trails. There are six adventures: You and Your Faith, You and God’s Word, You and Prayer, You Serving Others, You Building Others, and You Telling Others. Within each there are 7 or 8 action steps.
Discuss the material with him (one per meeting), after he has done each Action Step. He may have questions for you. Don’t feel like you must be an expert. Listen and allow him to talk. Help him feel at ease. The 15-20 minutes of Battalion squad meetings can be used for this purpose.
Initiate interaction with him whenever possible. Because you have been chosen by him to be his mentor, you can encourage him even when he has not completed an Action Step. Find out what you can do to help.
Be a learner yourself. Notice the Bible memory verses. Try to quote them to him before he says them to you. Allow him to make as many mistakes as you make. Do the Bible studies on your own so you are familiar with them.
Allow him to do the work. Ask yourself, “Has he completed it to his ability, even though it may not be perfect?” When finished, sign in his book. Look at the next Action Step and determine when you’ll meet next. Pray together.
Figure Out if you will need to provide some extrinsic incentive (a reward) to help him finish the unit. These young men are busy and will get distracted. Keep a positive attitude, even when he may appear to be losing interest. You can work along with him in things on which he does not understand. This may be of great encouragement to him.
Report back to the Battalion Leadership when all is completed. Keep adequate records and turn them in. Another man may be his mentor in his next achievement adventure. Pray for him as he continues.
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The above was from one of the old achievement books but is a good starting point.
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This is great! It may end up as part of an actual mentor certification that we have slated to be built. 🙂
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@davegregg one of the things we do when a new mentor comes on I setup a meeting with them and go over the whole program one-to-one.
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Thanks Dave! @JoshGregg , Dave Taylor is a great resource as you are setting up our mentoring process.
Dave, we are going to set up two zoom calls. We have 25 mentors to try to orient, educate, and help. So one by one would take us all year! In future years we will hopefully have less orientation to do, but this is really the first time we are implementing the mentoring component.
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@davidtaylorjr Do you have a list of the things you go over with them that you can provide here?
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I can come up with something.
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@davegregg this conversation has actually prompted me to come up with some training for mentors that work with guys in our local unit. I’m currently writing a “Mentor Handbook.”
I’ll be glad to share it when it is complete.
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Did this ever get finished?
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I have david taylors number and will reach out to him to find out.
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Hey Ted, it did not get finished and I have looked for the draft but it has apparently gotten lost along the way. However, I’m open to working on a new one.
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The wording posted was slightly shortened from the brochure that came with the 1996 published Adventure Trails. I’m attaching a scanned copy of that brochure, titled You Can Mentor Him. Yes that’s Ron Rynd on the smaller photo, and Brian Eisentraut (Camp Hemlock Director) on the larger photo surrounded by text. Note that any reprint would have to change the CSB PO and city address, as well as the Fax number and Email address. Yes, rewrite would involve reassigning some terms. Action Steps are now Adventures in Quest for Manhood, and ReAct, ProAct and InterAct are now Trail Notes, Action and Encounter. This was written for new mentors and should still be used.
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Thank you so much Arden!
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@amusselman @davegregg just a note that they are simply called “Achievements” in the Adventure Trails Classic book. I would like to see promotional materials equally highlight both tracks as they both have pros/cons but are good resources in their own right.
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I will also be talking about mentoring in my workshop at the Leadership Advance this weekend.
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The more I think about this topic, the more I lean towards mentors should be Brigade Leaders. Why do we have non-Brigade people mentoring Brigadiers and talking about Brigade topics?
I recently read the 1963 edition of “Boys For Christ.” I had already been thinking about this and then read something that gave my thought some validation. The book said “Only Captains and Lieutenants are qualified to sign off on achievement tests.”
I am not saying that we should necessarily change, but to me, there was a reason that in earlier days of Brigade that was the thought process and, to me, that thought process makes total sense.
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A couple of thoughts to answer your question about involving other men of the church as mentors.
Note, as they are referred to as mentors, not as leaders, we want to see more men identify with the Brigade ministry in a church. “Oh I can be involved this way, without committing to weekends away?” This is also a way to further intergenerational connections between men and teens in the church. We know of churches where this has been done successfully, as was intended.
In such cases, a mentoring coordinator had a role in matching the mentors and mentees and typically found it necessary to encourage more engagement, and give some basic guidance to the mentoring. This was a role delegated by the Battalion Captain to a Battalion leader he trusted with this coordination and keeping in touch with the individual mentors. In one case it was a previous captain, in another case a current lieutenant.
If the mentoring is seen to be so closely identified with achievement, as only Battalion leaders can know what it’s about, then it seems to be ingrown, in my opinion. We should spread the awareness of what we are doing, so that more men can see the important influence they can be for a youth.
See the attachment, interview with a Captain Dennis and the mentor Lou who took Josh P. through 3 Stars during his high school years in Battalion using the Leadership Trails, prior to the current version. There is also a link to a 3 minute video taken during this interview.
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We are finding it really beneficial to allow men from outside the battalion leadership. it involves other men who may not yet have the time or the vision to be involved as leaders. Also, we have too many boys for the mentoring to happen well if it were only up to leaders. 🙂
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Ah yes, the old model (which we are trying out with one of our Corporals and Brigadiers this year) is that actually the corporal would do a lot of the mentoring and would decide when a brigadier was ready to sign off on something. Then they would be sent to a Sr. Leader for completing the step.
I like this model for two reasons. 1. It allows the corporal to really build relationally with the guys in their squads at a much deeper level than just the weekly squad meeting. 2. It allows the Sr. Leaders to have more 1-1 contact with the regular members and not just the Leadership Team.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use mentors outside of the unit. But there are pros and cons to both models as have already been discussed.
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