This past month, our Peer MentoringWorks (PMW) Community of Practice (CoP) gathering met for our third meeting; it was a time of networking and learning more about the future of this CoP. It was overall another success! We wanted to provide this summary for CoP members and for anyone looking to join the PMW CoP!
Networking Activity Guide
Derek Shields of the National Disability Mentoring Coalition reviewed a new PMW Tool, the PMW Networking Activity Guide. Derek shared the importance of getting networking and other soft skills development tools and resources to young people sooner. Young people are often told that there is importance in building relationships; however, teaching how to network is often forgotten. The networking guide shares how to network, provide activities, and includes community voices sharing their networking experiences. Mentors can use this networking guide to work with their mentees on building networking skills. This tool is a downloadable file as part of the PMW learning platform that mentors can access online.
Members Introduction
The October CoP meeting also included a time of getting to know each of our members. Since we have members from all across the country and are growing, we allocated time to check-in with each other. Each member shared their organization and role, shared recent program achievements and a handful of attendees shared their needs in hopes of bettering their organization’s peer mentoring program.
Some needs that were asked by members were:
- For ideas on how to entice students to work with mentors
- For stronger mentoring connections
- For strategies on how to make mentoring more prevelant
PMW CoP as a Social Enterprise Model
The PMW CoP desires to utilize the social enterprise model having members driving the enterprises services and offerings. PMW is currently looking for opportunities to build out this base so that the CoP can become a peer mentoring advocacy model that is about us and for us. The PMW CoP strives to intensify the impact of and purpose behind peer mentoring through the combined knowledge, energy, investment and impact of its collected participants.
Moving forward, PMW will create an Advisory Board to assist in the strategic development of the CoP. Please email Steve Allen if would like to join the Board.
Save the Date for the December PMW CoP Meeting!
We have decided to meet at the beginning of December to have a single meeting between now and the end of the year. Please join us for our Peer MentoringWorks Community of Practice meeting on Wednesday, December 2, at 1:00-2:30 pm EST. This meeting will feature a presentation by Michael Garringer, the Director of Research and Evaluation for MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership!
As a courtesy, we are sending calendar invites to PMW CoP Members soon. If you have not been to a past meeting and would like to join us, fill out our Google Form to get a Zoom link sent your way!