DMU Mentoring For All

A super exciting opportunity 🎉

This is a great opportunity for students to undertake in their second or final year

Reminder 🚨
Application close on the 6th April.
You must have attended an application workshop before applying.

Good luck 🎉

Here at DMU, mentoring is extremely important as it helps students feel part of a community which can help them excel in their studies.

When applying for a job, employers look out for key sills that potential employees have. These skills can be gained through mentoring if you are struggling with any of them.

Both mentors and mentees are extremely nervous for their first mentoring session as they do not know how it will go. These are a couple of pointers about what may happen during your first mentoring session.

Often mentoring can be mistaken for counselling. Mentoring, comparing to counselling, allows for students to have an informal relationship with their mentors and be able to establish ways to reach their goals and make changes to their life.
DMU does provide support for those that may want counselling.

See below for the services that are available.

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The Wellbeing Team
The Wellbeing Team offers counselling which can give you the opportunity to talk in confidence with someone who is impartial and separate from work, social and family life.
Their aim is not to solve your problems for you; but to help you find and activate your own resources to resolve your difficulties.
To access support please email [email protected] or book an appointment via MyGateway.

VitaMinds
VitaMinds works in partnership with the NHS to provide talking therapy services, which can help with issues like excessive worry, ​depression, anxiety, and lack of motivation.
VitaMinds is a free and confidential service. VitaMinds allows you to use the self-referral form on their website or call on 0330 094 5595.

Togetherall
Togetherall is a free online community, a safe place to support your mental health 24/7.
Using their DMU email address, students can access free online mental health support, any time, any day.
It is available 24/7 and monitored by trained clinicians.

For more information about other services that are provided, click on the link below.

https://www.dmu.ac.uk/current-students/student-support/wellbeing-disability/counselling/index.aspx

Mentoring provides many benefits to both students and staff such as gaining skills and confidence.

How to make the most of your mentoring experience

MENTORING TIPS- A short series!

Tip #4: What to do if things are not going the way you expected!🤔

Sometimes, mentoring will not go the best way. In that case, it's important to take action!

Here are a few reasons why you might want to take a break from mentoring:
1. You're too busy
2. You have issues a mentor can't help with
3. The mentor is not right for you

Whatever the reason is, you have numerous solutions. Some include:
1. Talking to your mentor about the issue: Being open with your mentor is crucial to the relationship. You could tell them what's not working for you, and try to find a resolution together.

2. Getting a new mentor: Mentoring scheme leaders try to match you with the best mentor based on your and their skills and interests, however if you feel like this mentor is simply not right for you, contact your scheme leader and request a new mentor!

3. Taking a break from the scheme: If nothing else seems like a good option, the best thing to do might be taking a break. You can tell your mentor or scheme leader that you would like to pause mentoring, and they will be more than happy to discuss the options of coming back with you!

This concludes our mentoring tips! Hopefully you learned something and feel more calm starting your mentoring journey!

MENTORING TIPS- A short series!

Tip #3: Things to note about your mentor!😀

In our previous post, we spoke about easing the first meeting. This post is aiming to do the same by explaining a couple of things about your mentor.

1. They are here to support you! Whilst they might not offer you advice or tell you what to do, they will use their experience to offer as much support as they can. They want you to learn from their experiences!

2. You're on equal grounds, learning from each other! Mentoring is a two-way street, where your mentor will gain as much as you will. They are interested in your obstacles, ideas and experiences, so don't be afraid to share them!

3. Their views might be different from yours, and that's okay! If you're wondering how to resolve a specific issue, you might ask the mentor about their experience with it. One of the possible outcomes is them resolving a situation differently than you would. That's fine, because it will give you another perspective from which you can learn from!

Hopefully these tips will be useful in your mentoring journey! Look out for part 4!

MENTORING TIPS- A short series!

Tip #2: Your first mentoring meeting doesn't have to be scary!

Meeting new people can often be intimidating, so we have prepared a few tips for you!✨
1. Introduce yourself! Tell your mentor who you are as a person. It will ease the tension, and might bring up some ideas and might direct your future mentoring sessions.

2. Tell them about your goals! As the first point, this can influence your future sessions. Also, discussing your goals with a mentor can help you shape them, and realise what is most significant for you!

3. Get to know your mentor! Ask them to tell you what motivates them, how they prefer to work and similar! These things can help you shape your questions for them, and topics you would like to talk about.

4. Have a few questions prepared! You will be told about this by your scheme leader anyway, but it is good to prepare for the first meeting. Even if you don't have the time to go through them all, having some questions will help steer the conversation.

5. Relax, your mentor is nervous too! In more cases than not, your mentor is also nervous and excited about meeting you! You're in the same boat, unsure of how this relationship will proceed. That's why it's worth relaxing and taking it one step at a time!

Hopefully these tips will be useful in your mentoring journey! Look out for part 3!

MENTORING TIPS- A short series!

Tip #1: Mentoring is not counselling!

One of the common misconceptions about mentoring is that it's similar to counselling. While there are similarities, such as having open discussions, mentoring is about learning from the mentor's experience.

You are encouraged to ask the mentor about developing personal and professional skills, such as confidence, time management, stress and similar. They can tell you how they dealt with these issues to influence your own life.
However, you should not simply vent about your feelings and problems and expect life-changing advice. That's not what the mentor is for!

Hopefully these tips will be useful in your mentoring journey! Look out for part 2!

Andy Morris is the leader of the Employability mentoring scheme! Here is what he had to say about mentoring:

"What captures my interest and helps me to grow? Well, I don't really read books as I struggle with absorbing print and trying things out and experimenting has never been my way of doing things. What I like... What I really enjoy, is real human connection. I like stories and listening to other people stories. Stories that are hard earned, detail rich, emotive and that show how a person can overcome an achieve. I love listening to such stories of people's real world experiences, and I love then taking lessons from them and applying them to myself. There is so much wisdom to be found in engaging with others, sharing our journey so far and coming away richer as a result. Mentoring is all about this experience. It shapes what I do and how I do it. It has made me the person I am and informs the person and professional I aspire to be. My hope is that through my work at the university it can help to shape our DMU students, their aspirations and their lives."

Thank you to Andy who is always going above and beyond to make sure his scheme is running smoothly. It's noticed and appreciated!