Note 19/4/19 – an updated self-care guide can be found here.
Last week a colleague of mine and I ran a mental health/self-care workshop for some Inspire Mentors.
“The Inspire Mentor Program connects young people from primary and secondary schools with university student mentors, which empowers them to consider higher education as an option for their future. Mentors act as role models to support engagement in learning, social and emotional wellbeing and academia.”
We were taken with just how literate this group was in terms of mental health, wellbeing and self-care. We were lucky that a significant part of the workshop allowed us to sit with these Mentors and learn about the amazing work they do.
As part of the workshop, we prepared a guide for mentors on self-care.
The reasons for talking about self-care with mentors are two-fold:
- Mentors work with young people who are often in difficult circumstances and emotional distress. This can be taxing on mentors and it is important they have their own life in reasonable order so they can absorb this stress healthily.
- A big chunk of mentoring is teaching through example, so mentors who make deliberate attempts to look after their own health and wellbeing model that to the person they are working with. “Do as I do”.
I saw no reason to not share this document more widely, so attached to this post is a self-care guide for mentors.
Have a read, contemplate, share and if you are feeling a bit brave, provide some feedback so I can improve this guide over time.
Take care
Dr G
