Planning and implementing a community mentoring programme
Planning and implementing a community mentoring programme follows the same steps of a simple mentoring programme, aligning the four mentoring phases in three basic management steps: planning; implementing and assessing. In this suggested methodology, the planning phase will correspond to the two initial phases of the mentoring practice – the preparation and initiation phase.
This basically means you will be planning for different levels and situations but with the final purpose of designing your mentoring programme (formal document to guide you in your mentoring practices).
In the preparation phase you will be organising yourself for the mentoring relationship, i.e., you are already planning your mentoring programme. But within the context of this training, we are not talking about a generic mentoring programme.
You are now designing a community mentoring programme to boost the Silver Economy as a drive to economic development in local and rural areas. The Silver Economy is about acknowledging the role of people as consumers, which brings potential new types of products and services. This will also untap the potential of seniors, in specific 50+ individuals, to become both entrepreneurs and mentors. Having this in mind, you can start by formulating some questions to answer the 5W’s and 1H methodology, as an example:
Why? (OBJECTIVES) Why build a community mentoring programme? Why is it important to undertake a community programme? Why do community mentoring practices boost the Silver Economy?
Who? (PEOPLE) Who are the individuals in the community that I will (or need to) mobilise? Who are going to be the mentors? Who are going to be the mentees?
How? (METHODOLOGY): How can mentoring be a mechanism to support the Silver economy and Senior entrepreneurship? How can mentoring surpass training on how to provide individuals with key entrepreneurial competences? How is the progress of this programme going to be evaluated and/or assessed?
What? (CONCEPTS, PRACTICES AND TECHNIQUES): What are the most appropriate mentoring models to enhance senior entrepreneurship? What are the most suitable practices and techniques for entrepreneurship mentoring?
Where? (CONTEXTS): Where can this community mentoring programme take place?
When? (SITUATIONS AND TIMEFRAME): When should I implement a mentoring programme to boost 50+ entrepreneurship? When should this programme start? When should this programme end?
