Facilitating Student Mentorship: The Role of High Schools in Guiding Connections

Mentorship programs have a strong track record for success. They keep people accountable. They reduce stress, improve the flow of knowledge between people in a common setting, and boost overall outcomes. 

Student mentorship programs can yield these results, but they require careful implementation. Schools must develop systems to ensure that the mentorship takes place regularly and with mutual levels of commitment between participants.

In this article, we take a look at how high schools can guide connections and why it is important to do so. 

First, what is mentorship?

Mentorship is just another word for guidance—particularly when it takes place in a specific setting, such as a company, or a school system. The idea is to pair someone who is new to a certain setting, with someone who knows the ropes. The experience is supposed to help people acclimate better during times of adjustment. 

An obvious application in the school setting would be to connect freshmen with responsible upperclassmen. Similarly, captains or coaches of extracurricular programs might connect new members with experienced participants in their program. 

The problem, of course, is that age does not necessarily indicate wisdom—particularly when it comes to high school students. 

Educators might instead put the focus on achievement over seniority. Connect students who have demonstrated strong results with those who are at risk. 

Below, we take a look at several challenges high school students face that can be improved by mentorship. 

Mental Health Issues Among High School Students

High school students experience pressures and emotions that they may feel uncomfortable discussing with the adults in their lives. True mental health issues should be funnelled toward professionals but peer-level relationships can be a strong secondary form of treatment. 

Simply having someone else who understands where you are coming from when times get hard can be healing. 

Developing a Healthy System

One of the first issues that school counselors will bump up against when they try to implement a peer mentorship program is supply. Finding a large rost of exceptionally responsible high school students is hard. Convincing them to voluntarily mentor other kids their age will be even harder. 

To that end, it will help to have participation incentives for mentors. Extra credit is one potential option. Developing the program in a way that will stand out on a college application is certainly another. Many highly motivated students will jump at the opportunity to put a leadership credential on their resume. 

It may be equally challenging to find mentees. How this is done may depend on participation criteria. If the people eligible for mentorship are in some sort of at-risk category, it may be best to make participation compulsory. 

If the objective is a little more open-ended—for example, you simply want to connect as many incoming students as possible with a successful upperclassman—you can work on leading with a carrot instead of a stick. 

Regardless, if you want to get people to participate at a high level, you need to heavily emphasize the program. 

Progressive school-wide initiatives benefit from the systemized organization. Tap into data, and track progress. Adjust your incentives as new information comes in to maximize the impact. 

Most schools will have people working within the district who have trained at the graduate level. Unsurprisingly, educators are much more likely to go to graduate school than the general public. Through master’s or E.D.D. programs, many teachers and administrators learn how to use data and tap into other technologies that might be beneficial to this process. Take advantage of every resource you have. 

How Schools Can Help

Great. So mentorships are a good idea. What’s next? As mentioned at the front end of this article, mentorships often don’t happen organically. Schools can help foster them by initiating programs that pair older students with younger ones. 

Bolstering programs with incentives may help to stoke participation. It’s also important to make sure the programs are accessible regardless of the student’s personal background. For example, will kids have to miss the bus to participate in an after-school mentorship program? If so, is there a safe alternative way for them to get home? Or, perhaps, a way for them to participate during school hours?

As with any school program, the idea isn’t just to create a good opportunity. It’s also to make sure as many people can participate as possible.