The Workers

The volunteer and paid workers who are building your mentoring program must be appropriately skilled, screened, trained and managed to ensure a solid program and safe, positive mentoring relationships.

The volunteers

Volunteers are the backbone of any mentoring program. Your program likely utilizes volunteers in a variety of capacities … as mentors, board and committee members, and for office support, fundraising, special events, or any other job they can reasonably perform.

Volunteers in all these roles must be managed. Volunteer management has become increasingly sophisticated, with codes of conduct for volunteer management and volunteer screening standards now guiding the field. A great resource for documents and support is the VOLUNTEER CANADA Resource Centre. The importance of these standards of practice cannot be understated: voluntary organizations and their boards are being held legally and financially accountable when they do not meet their duty of care and comply with these standards. It is therefore essential that your program's volunteers be managed in accordance with current standards.

The staff

Just as your mentoring program's volunteer workers must be screened, so must its paid staff. Police record checks, child welfare record checks (where available), reference checks, and thorough interviews are recommended screening requirements for both volunteers and paid staff.

Mentoring programs must also ensure that their paid employees come to the job with the necessary skills. This is especially true for casework positions. Casework staff should have educational credentials and experience in a relevant human services discipline, such as social work or psychology. They should also receive training regarding mentoring and volunteer management issues. If this instruction is not available from a formal training program, it should be obtained in-house, or through an affiliated organization.

Not every mentoring program will have paid workers. Some small programs may use volunteers to fulfill roles that are typically done by staff in larger mentoring organizations. It is essential, though, that volunteers in such roles as volunteer screening and orientation, screening of mentees, match supervision and other critical casework roles, also have relevant human services education and experience, as well as training in mentoring and volunteer management issues.

Remember, mentoring program staff are called upon to make very responsible decisions that impact the safety and development of children and youth. And your organization will be held accountable for the actions of program staff. So be sure you have enough workers, and be sure you have workers with the training and qualifications necessary to ensure the well being of those whom your organization serves.

If you are responsible for overseeing your mentoring organization's workers, you can check out more information on human resources in the Board Training Module that is included on this website.

For a deeper understanding of your mentoring program's volunteer management requirements, go on a volunteer research expedition.

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