Program organisation and resources
The purpose of the programme is to reduce reoffending by developing better autism coping strategies, positive identity and confidence.
To achieve these ends mentees have
- Weekly mentoring
- The Pathway programme course course with weekly topiccs (this is being developed)
Please encourage your mentee to take full advantage of the course and the support group. It would provide a structured helpful resources and underpinning to their journey through the mentoring programme. We will share resources and topics with mentors in the following lesson.
The mentoring programme involves (for mentors)
- Weekly 1 hour mentoring for a period of 20 weeks conducted via the online channel preferred by the mentee at a mutually agreed time. You will be paid for 1 hour session for 20 sessions in total. This means that you will be paid for 1 session even if it takes longer than 1 hour. You may schedule two sessions per week if you had a break and have to catch up.
- DBS checks will be done on the week of 18 September
- You will be given an employment contract to sign.
- We will start introducing you to your mentees after the DBS checks on the week of 2 October.
- Mentoring supervision with Karen-Anne Manghan, Jacky Moran, Wendy Pearson, the schedule to be published below in the topic, tentatively on the weeks of 11 and 18 October and early December
- Keeping a brief structured reflective report. A template is attached
- Mentor support group and advice on the private mentor forum and Zoom meetings.
- Resources and outlines of the mentees’ course will be shared weekly in topics below
Template for record keeping:
After each session we need you to email us the minimal structured report as proof of sessions happening so we could keep timesheets and justify payments to you for our funders. You can keep an extended detailed version of the reports for yourself. You can email us as minimal report as you would like, but please do it after each session.
Important: the privacy policy explains clearly that this Structured Report should be strictly about your reflection, planning and structuring of your mentoring. Even if it mentions information about your mentee, it should not be about them, but about you. Please do not write your mentee name in the report, please just refer to them as your mentee. You should not share your report with your mentee as it relates to your mentoring.
Mentor support group:
- Please go to the Mentor’s private forum (it can be found at the top of main forum and only visible to mentors), introduce yourself if you haven’t already done so and engage: https://ndsa.uk/forum/forums/Mentors_Corner/ .
- NDSA open forum is at https://ndsa.uk/forum
- How to use the forum: https://ndsa.uk/forum/threads/how-to-use-the-site.29/
There is a mentor support group every Monday at 6 pm with Bethany and Marie. Experienced mentors also drop by, so please attend in if you have any question and would like to discuss.
The group runs on Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83696227664?pwd=dk9sdlpIZk9pbHdrZGQ4NWphSGtndz09
Meeting ID: 836 9622 7664
Passcode: 675475
Organisational aspects
1. Safeguarding/Complaints -contact Marie at toolup@ndsa.uk
The Safeguarding policy can be found belowNDSA-Safeguarding-policy-update-7-Dec-2021Download
2. Privacy/Confidentiality
Please read carefully our Privacy Policy •https://ndsa.uk/tool-up/programmes/privacy-policy-2/ •
You are handling sensitive information, so please treat it confidentially, do not share with your friends & family members and keep record in a safe private space.
The mentees consented to their data being treated by NDSA and anonymised data treated by research partners. So you can discuss everything with us and everything except the mentee’s full name and contact details with the supervisors.
3. Record keeping – You will be keeping Structured Reports that you don’t need to share with your mentee.
Question:‘Beyond reflective practice, I was considering making a few notes after each session summarising what was said/discussed. I would like to offer to share these with my mentee between sessions and offer *them* the opportunity to correct any inaccuracies/misunderstandings. Would that be ok if it was something *they* would like?’
This is not a good idea as the mentee will feel they need to curate the report. It is a tool for you. You don’t have to ask mentee’s permission for your structured reports. It is attached. You could add or change the structure of the attached. Email it to toolup@ndsa.uk after each session with as much or as little information as you would like. You could also keep a more detailed report for yourself and email the minimal version to us as as proof of session. We need that for our funders.Structured-report-V2Download
4. Zoom – we recommend it because it is a videoconferencing platform that does not display email addresses. It is free for individuals for 40 minutes. Unfortunately you would need to restart a new meeting after 40 minutes. We expect you to schedule that yourself as otherwise I would have an impossible task of being a secretary to 60 people.
5. Mentee online course.
Outline of the weekly lesson and resources will be shared in lesson 17 of the course. You don’t have to follow all the videos, but please do use those resources. Encourage your mentees to reflect and fill them in.
Employee status
Mentors who didn’t volunteer to mentor on a voluntary basis will become employees with respective PAYE arrangements by us. They will receive £13.2 per session paid monthly in arrears inclusive of PAYE taxes, which we will handle on their behalf. We will add to this the holiday pay, so the total payment will amount to £296 for the entire 20 weeks programme.
If relevant, depending on your current employment contract, you may need to seek your employer permission for essentially a second job. The alternative is to mentor on voluntary basis.
Timesheets
We will keep one simple unified time sheet. Please email us your structured reports as evidence. If you don’t email us the reports we will not be able to pay you.
