BEST PRACTICES

Kansas Mentors strives to provide aide and guidance to mentorship programs throughout all Kansas counties to ensure every child in the state has access to a suitable mentor. To do this, Kansas Mentors and its Council of Mentors believes that mentoring programs throughout the state must aspire to provide the best services possible. That’s why Kansas Mentors has adopted the following standards to help ensure all young people are receiving the most beneficial, safest, and effective mentoring relationships.

Kansas Mentors considers the following definition of mentoring and the Elements of Effective Practice™ to be the key components of any successful program. These guidelines are not meant to certify or accredit mentoring programs, rather, they are designed to provide a framework for new programs and help established programs improve. Mentoring programs are encouraged to review these practices and decide how they will best meet the needs of mentors and young people in their communities.

Definition of Mentoring
Kansas Mentors’ Council of Mentors, which is a board of experts in faith, school and community-based mentoring programs from across the state, helped establish the following definition: Mentoring is a consistent, structured, stable relationship between youth and a caring role model(s) that:

Involves regular, ongoing, and ideally face-to-face meetings
Is focused on developing the character, capabilities and confidence of the young person(s).

Elements of Effective Practice
Kansas Mentors strongly endorses the Elements of Effective Practice™ created by MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership, which were developed by mentoring experts from across the nation and urges all mentoring programs to follow these practices. There are four key components of these practices:

Program Design and Planning: This element provides a comprehensive strategy for how to start an effective mentoring program.
Program Management: This element involves developing a finance plan and the managerial practices needed to help ensure the program is well-managed.
Program Operations: This element focuses on recruitment, screening, training, and matching practices, which are beneficial to maintaining standards for safe and effective mentoring.
Program Evaluation: This element is gives guidance for establishing program quality and effectiveness.

The complete Elements of Effective Practice™ are available to view and download at www.mentoring.org/program_staff/design/elements_of_effective_practice.php