This mentoring resource is a guide to establishing and running near-peer mentorship programs. It is based on the working knowledge and best practices developed by the Access Network. Many of the Access sites include a near-peer mentoring program that is developed to best support their local context. Student leaders have generated and honed best practices for all aspects of running their sites. This guide is an attempt to synthesize those efforts, offering practical advice for student leaders setting up near-peer mentorship programs in their own departments. It has been written through the lens of STEM undergraduate near-peer mentorship programs, although our framework could easily be extended to other demographics (e.g. high schoolers, graduate students, etc.). In this document, we outline best practices for designing, running, and sustaining near-peer mentorship programs. We provide template resources to assist with this work, and lesson plans to run mentor and mentee training sessions. We hope you find this guide useful in designing, implementing, and re-evaluating community oriented near-peer mentoring programs.
Chapter 1: Near-Peer Mentorship Programs
Appendix Resources
A worksheet to guide program organizers through the design of (or reflection on) a near-peer mentoring program. This worksheet asks you to consider your target audience, the pros and cons of mentorship group structure, the pros and cons of different mentorship platforms, and the overarching goals of your program.
Lesson plans for a 2.5 hour training session, describing the training objectives, materials needed, facilitator preparation, and outline for the training session, including how to use the other resources are listed here.
A slide presentation to be used for mentor and mentee training. The slides should be adapted to your specific needs, but contain many stand alone subsections on topics such as mentor/mentee expectations, active listening, identity and privilege, and setting goals.
A worksheet designed for mentors’ reflection on their own identity, the ways in which various identities are dominant or non-dominant, and how identity impacts the ways in which we interact with and experience the world.
A worksheet designed for mentees’ reflection on their goals, their existing support structure, and the support/connections that they want to build over the course of the program
Three pairs of mentor/mentee cards describing the mentor/mentee’s perspective on an example scenario, designed for mentors to practice navigating challenging situations. The cards contain the scenario on one side and discussion questions on the other.
Three pairs of mentor/mentee cards describing the mentor/mentee’s perspective on an example scenario, designed for mentees to practice communicating concerns to their mentor. The cards contain the scenario on one side and discussion questions on the other.
A template tri-fold pamphlet to be filled with academic, career, mental health, physical health, financial, department specific, and advocacy resources.