Leadership Initiative Mentoring - Apply to be a Mentor

The Leadership Initiative provides early childhood leaders, as well as those who aspire to leadership roles in the future, with leadership development opportunities focused on leadership and management, entrepreneurship, advocacy, career mobility, and high-quality early childhood education. Mentoring provided by individuals who have skills and expertise to support the effectiveness of early childhood leaders are an essential component of these opportunities.

Mentoring provides the mentee an opportunity to develop their leadership and management skills and learn from an experienced practitioner how to navigate many of the challenges and decisions faced by early childhood leaders within the context of a confidential and supportive relationship. Additionally, mentors benefit through the opportunity to develop their skills in communication, leadership, and adult education, and to share their expertise, contributing to ensuring quality in the early childhood field.

A mentor guides another person, practically and supportively, to learn and grow in their career. The knowledge, advice, and resources a mentor shares depend on the format and goals of a specific mentoring relationship. A mentor may share with a mentee (or protégé) information about his or her own career path, but more importantly, provide guidance, motivation, emotional support, and role modeling. A mentor may help with exploring careers, setting goals, developing contacts, and identifying resources. Effective mentors model empathetic listening skills and ask great questions. The mentor role may change as the needs of the mentee change.

The mentor and mentee will meet ideally 6 times over the course of a year, for a minimum of 12 months.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible to participate in leadership mentoring as a mentor to others individuals must:

10+ years of experience in the early childhood field preferred
Degree and/or certification/credential in Early Childhood education or related field, Master's degree preferred
Experience supporting the development of others through experience in a leadership role
Knowledge & skills related to building trusting relationships
Has strong interpersonal, communication, listening, content area, awareness of diversity, and reflective supervision skills
Has strong knowledge of early childhood best practices and quality standards
Maintains an active Aspire and Leadership Initiative profile
Member of an early childhood professional organization (e.g. NAEYC or NYAEYC) or board, preferred

We will review your interest to provide mentoring and a Leadership Initiative staff member may follow up with you to clarify or gather additional information if needed. We will make matches based on your qualifications and experiences and the needs of our members. We make mentor matches on a rolling basis and will notify you once we have been able to make a match.

*Please Note: this is a volunteer opportunity. As an incentive and token of appreciation Leadership Initiative mentors, once successfully matched with a mentee, will be provided with a professional library

Personal / Contact

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Phone:

Work County: What county do you primarily / usually work in? If unemployed, what county do you live in?

Aspire Registry ID: (optional) What is this?

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