Once a month, program staff (Madinah, Corina, and Briana) meet with the mentor cohort (Marina, Ariela, Lailatou, Julie, & Liana) to check in. We share resources, update each other on how our experience with mentees is going, ask questions, celebrate what’s going well, strategize paths forward, and more. In short, we support each other!
So far, these check-ins have been valuable spaces for what adrienne maree brown (2017) calls “collaborative ideation,” where we share perspectives and information that help us adapt and craft a way forward. This is a pilot program, after all, and in alignment with the feminist ethic guiding our work, we’re prepared to shift as we, together, strive to create mentoring relationships that are non-hierarchical, collaborative, and just.
Several ideas and practices have emerged from this time for community support and reflection, including a mid-term survey for mentees, “artifacts” that mentoring teams are creating together to document their work, and an in-process co-authored article reflecting on our experiences with this project. More on these to come!
The monthly mentor check-ins are just one way we aim to build community, share & create knowledge, and shape the contours of our collective work.