by christina christou

Created on: January 25, 2010   Last Updated: January 26, 2010

Mentoring is a relationship built on trust and co-operation.  It is a two-way relationship where both the mentor and mentee benefit from the experience.  The Mentor comes to the relationship equipped with a bag of skills and tools which can be offered to the mentee in order to empower him/her to move forward in their lives.

Mentoring an adult usually involves a willingness to move forward.  Usually the adult has asked for help and is aware that they will need to work at what ever they want to move forward with.  A child in a mentoring programme is usually referred from teachers, parents or other organisation and there is already a barrier put in place where the mentor will need to break through.

For mentoring to work it is better for the mentee to be present willingly.  This is not to say that mentoring cannot work if the mentee is referred to the programme.  What is important is for the mentee to be fully informed of what the programme involves, what mentoring is and is not and what are the expectations from both parties.

Mentoring adults can be as challenging as mentoring children.  The main difference is that adults are more emotionally fluent in expressing their wishes (not all) and if they feel like it is not working for them, or that they feel uncomfortable with the relationship they are more likely to mention it to their mentor.  Whereas a child will use excuses of why they don't want to do the mentoring.

This may not always be the case.  There are times when an adult may not turn up to the session, not answer your call and totally fall off the edge of the world, not hearing from them again.  Therefore this in this example it is fare to say that it depends on character and circumstances.

Mentoring children involves certain confidentiality codes you need to be aware of.  If you suspect that there are issues of child protection then the proper authorities need to be informed.  A child may not tell you there are issues of child protection, but you may suspect from their non-committal answers, their posture, and/or their school progress. 

It is essential that you approach the subject sensitively, in order to keep the channels of conversation open.  This is where the mentoring relationship is essential.  There has to be a solid trust between the mentor and mentee, in order for the child to feel able to share their issues.  Trust applies to mentoring an adult too.  It is more

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