I want to make a thread of notes for people thinking of starting mentorship programs of any kind. I’ve been running and overseeing mentorship initiatives for years now, and I want to pass on what I’ve learned.
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What do I mean by “mentorship?” Could be anything from very casual to very formal— someone offering help on their timeline to a company-sponsored program that connects people. The idea is a more experienced person connects with and passes on knowledge to a less experienced person
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- Curation has value. My list is curated— meaning I know each person on there and mentees give me feedback. I’ve run into several issues with sexism and racism and had to remove several mentors from the list because of it. Think about how you’ll handle this.
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- Ideas on how to handle it: Code of conducts, close curation, easy ways for mentees to provide feedback. The key to handling this is understanding the power dynamic and protecting mentees. They often won’t feel comfortable giving feedback to mentors.
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- Related to this, you need to have a way for mentees to politely bow out of a mentoring relationship. Less problematic for casual lists of mentors like mine, much more problematic for structured programs that do the connecting. Suggestion: mentor/mentee meeting before commitment
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Wish we could hear your opinion on recent Code of Conduct changes in FreeBSD which caused a massive incel butthurts
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