1. Mentoring Skills (Awareness, listening and showing understanding)
Mary Gordon
NEPS

2. Awareness Mentoring is about raising the learner’s awareness
To themselves
To others around them
To the world
You mostly raise their awareness by listening to the their story with your full attention

3. Mentoring can help their awareness of what they feel and think
their awareness of how they behave
their awareness of what is going on in their body and the information they are receiving through their senses
their awareness of how they make contact with other people
their awareness of their impact on their environment and the environment’s impact on them

4. Inner zone Awareness of Our visceral sensations
Our muscular tension or relaxation
Our heartbeat
Our bodily sensation and feeling
Our breathing (most of all)

5. Outer zone Awareness of Our behaviour Our speech Our actions
Our contact functions – how we make contact with the world (seeing, hearing, speaking, tasting, touching, smelling and moving)
Focusing on the outer zone allows us to become more aware of what we are doing and its effects on others and on ourselves and to notice what is going on around us.

6. Middle zone Awareness of Our thinking Our memories Our fantasies
Our anticipations
This zones mediates between our inner and outer zones. It organises our experiences so that we come to some kind of cognitive and emotional understanding of them. It also allows us to predict, plan, imagine, create and make choices.

7. Challenging
Challenging is only possible when the mentoring relationship is good
Challenging takes place in the middle zone where the learner is making sense of their experiences
You challenge their beliefs and thoughts if they are based on
inaccurate information (she doesn’t like me)
illogical reasoning (he didn’t ring me because he doesn’t care about me)
unhelpful thinking (I need to get drunk before I can enjoy myself here)
The reason for challenging a young person’s beliefs and thoughts is that they are getting in the way of
their sense of agency
their happiness or wellbeing

8. Attending and listening
Showing we are attending by
Our posture
Our gestures
Our facial expression
Our voice
SOLER

9. SOLER O – Adopt an OPEN posture
This says you are open to the learner and do not want to be defensive

10. SOLER
L – LEAN slightly towards the learner without intruding on their personal space
This underscores your attentiveness and lets learners know that you are with them

11. SOLER E – Maintain good EYE contact, without staring
This tells the learner you are interested in them and in what they have to say

12. SOLER R – Remain RELAXED
This indicates your confidence in what you are doing and helps the learner to relax

13. Showing understanding
Listening with empathy
“To sense the client’s inner world of private personal meanings as if it were your own, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality, this is empathy” (Rogers)

14. Paraphrasing
A good paraphrase provides a mirror or reflection that is clearer and more succinct than the learner’s original statement
A simple tip for paraphrasing is to start your responses with the personal pronoun ‘you’ to indicate that you are reflecting the learner’s internal viewpoints, for example ‘you feel terrible’.
Another tip is to allow your speech rate to slow down to give you more time to think.

15. Reflecting feelings
Skilled helpers are good at picking up learners feelings.
Reflecting back a learner’s feelings shows that you are tuned in to them
Reflecting feelings rather than thoughts establishes a climate where learners can share rather than bury their feelings.
Reflecting feelings involves both receiver and sender skills.

16. Receiver skills Understanding the learner’s face and body messages
Understanding the learner’s voice messages
Understanding their verbal messages
Tuning into the flow of your own emotional reactions
Taking into account the context of the learner’s messages and sensing the surface and underlying meanings of what they are saying

17. Sender skills Using learners feelings, words and phrases
Rewording feelings appropriately
Using voice and body messages that significantly neither add to nor subtract from the emotions conveyed
Checking the accuracy of your understanding