• Home
• What We Do
  • Volunteer Management
  • Management Committees
  • Child Protection
  • Volunteering
  • Training Calendar
  • Research and Audit
  • Investing in Volunteers
  • Millennium Volunteers
  • Community Volunteering Scheme
  • Unlocking Potential
  • Volunteer Bureaux Initiative
  • Consultation
  • Publications
  • Campaigns
  • Media
• Membership
  • About Us
  • What We Do
  • Connect With Us
  • Application
• Want to Volunteer?
  • What is Volunteering?
  • Guide to Volunteering
  • Search for Volunteering Opportunities
  • Residential Volunteering Opportunities
• About Us
  • Mission Statement
  • Contact Us
  • Supporters
  • Facilities
  • Job Vacancies
  • Links
  • General Information

[ Home » What We Do » Vol Vm Dev Prog Role Description.php ]

Mentor Role Description

A role description is an ideal way to present what any volunteer, not just mentors, are expected to do and the support they will receive.

Not only is it good practice, it is also a very useful tool to support the management and retention of your mentors.

Below is a basic outline of issues to consider when drafting a mentor role description. Remember, every project is different so mentor role descriptions will vary from project to project. However, there are key roles that all mentors will carry out.

 

Drafting a Mentor Role Description

We have provided below a list of the relevant headings that should be included in a role description and some guidance notes on the content. It is worth noting that it is not good practice to refer to a volunteer role description as a 'job' description. Volunteers have a unique role to play in your organisation and should not replace paid staff. The term 'job' confuses this clear distinction.

 

Core information

- Organisation's Name
Give the name of the overall organisation that is running the mentoring project.

- Project Title
State the name of your project here if different from your organisation's name.

- Title of Role
State whether this is as a Mentor/Peer Mentor/Business Mentor

- Volunteer/Mentor Co-ordinator
Give the name and job title of the person who is responsible for the management of the mentor.

 

Details about the mentoring activities

- Location
Briefly outline where a mentor will meet their mentee and where the mentoring will take place. Some projects are more flexible than others about where and when a mentor meets their mentee (particularly in community mentoring). However, you should still have guidelines. For example, the mentee's parent/guardian must be informed and agree when and where the mentor is meeting the mentee and when and where they will be returned when the session is over.

- Safe mentoring environment
A brief description of a safe mentoring environment will outline any boundaries your project may have on where the mentoring can take place.

For example, some school projects that have business/university student mentors coming into the school to mentor a pupil on a one-to-one basis in a separate room will have a strict room criteria that the mentors must follow. For example:

"The room selected for the purposes of a mentoring session must: be in a busy area of the school; have good visual access into it from corridor; not be a store room; be near other staff"

You should refer the volunteer to your Volunteer Policy, Child Protection Policy and Procedures (where mentoring young people), Health and Safety Policy etc for further, more explanatory details.

- When
Give a realistic guide to the minimum level of time commitment the mentor will need to give. If you are able to be flexible please state this here.

- Tasks
List the tasks that the volunteer mentor is expected to do. Your project may have additional specific tasks that are only relevant for your project.

 

Management and Support

- Trial period
It is useful for both your project and the volunteer to have an agreed trial period. This will depend on how often and for how long the volunteer mentors. For example, if it is once a week, a project should do a follow up call after the first mentoring session, offer supervision once a month and an overall trial period of 2 months.

- Support
Briefly indicate the support that the mentor will receive.

For example:

• Induction - how long, where and when.
• Initial Training - how long, where and when. You may not have exact dates and venues arranged yet but you can indicate whether it will be a residential, or three, two hours sessions, in a venue chosen to suit most participants etc.
• Personal Development or continued training options.
• Supervision - group or one-to-one, how often and where.
• Reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses.

It is important to state what elements, if not all, of induction and training must be completed before a volunteer can be matched with a mentee.

 

Additional details

- Car
If your mentor uses their car to transport themselves and the mentee, your organisation may require to see a valid M.O.T. and insurance certificates.

- Police checks
In most cases mentors will have significant access to their mentees on a one-to-one basis in which case the volunteer will need to agree to and clear a criminal record check before s/he can be matched. Click here to find out more about Pre-Employment Checks.

- Out-of-pocket expenses:
The volunteer should be informed that recording mileage and/or keeping receipts is a task that needs to be completed if they are to claim expenses. Refer them to your organisation's Volunteer Expenses Policy for further details. Click here to find out more about volunteers and expenses.