Provide Long-Term Mentors to Disadvantaged Youth

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to share with you that during the last three months our family has grown – we have 10 more volunteers who passed successfully the process of selection and their initial training.

I want to tell you a little bit more about the training. The training has four main topics – volunteering, specifics of the children and youths living in care, effective communication and mentoring. The duration of the training is two days and it is an obligatory step for all volunteers before starting work with mentees.

First we talk about volunteering – specifics, rights and obligations of the volunteers. It is really important all of us to have the same understanding about voluntary work, especially when it concerns interactions with underprivileged youth.

The second important topic in the training is connected with the specifics of the children and youth who live in institutions. Very often youths have some deficitsin their intellectual, emotional and social development. It is very important for the volunteers to be prepared and not to have unrealistic expectations. It is also true that sometimes the volunteers anticipate worse situation than the reality which also could lead to frustration when meeting the youth. Our experience with the first group of volunteers showed us that during the training we should pay attention also to the differences in the types of social services in Bulgaria.

The third topic is extremely important as the main “instrument” for the volunteers in their work with youths is their communication skills. During these sessions we discuss the main principles of effective communication (active listening, giving feedback, summarizing, etc). We also pay attention to non-verbal communication and its significance in the process of building relationships and trust in our interlocutor.

During the last session we talk about Mentoring – what it means to be a Mentor, how to become a good Mentor. We provide some practical tips and the volunteers can test themselves by role playing on cases from the practice.

Our new group of ten volunteers who successfully passed the training are looking forward to meet their mentees and start working together. They are all very motivated and ready to bring change to youths’ lives.

You made this possible - thank you for all your support! Look forward to our next report for more information on how youths are working with their Mentors.

Sincerely yours,

The Step for Bulgaria team