Business_Spotlight_No3_202..

72 Business Spotlight 3/2020 CAREERS & MANAGEMENT

INTERVIEW

“The biggest challenges as a mentor are

the things outside the area of my influence”

JANE WALTON (www.janewalton.org.uk) is a social

entrepreneur in Yorkshire, northern England. She has

a background in enterprise and has been involved in

campaigns and projects to increase young people’s

entrepreneurial awareness, skills and aspirations.

She provides business mentoring and training for

young people and is a director of Yorkshire Mentor-

ing. (www.yorkshirementoring.org.uk)

What’s your definition of mentoring?

It’s a mechanism that uses a set of skills, knowledge

and qualities to help an individual to move from one

place to another. It doesn’t matter where those places

are — the final definition of mentoring has to be

agreed by the mentor and the mentee, depending on

the context in which they’re working.

Tell us about your work at Yorkshire Mentoring.

Yorkshire Mentoring was established 13 years ago.

At that time, the government was looking to stop

funding an initiative called “Aim Higher”, which

was designed to encourage young people to raise

their aspirations through mentoring. A number of

local authorities and other interested parties de-

cided to set up a social enterprise to carry on and

develop this work. So, Yorkshire Mentoring was

established. Initially, most of our work was setting

up peer mentoring programmes in schools, but

we worked on getting other funding and started

working with women coming out of prison. Our

biggest contract at the moment is working with

children who have been referred to us by the men-

tal health services. We recruit and train volunteer

mentors from the community and then match

them with the children.

What achievements are you particularly proud

of?

The peer mentoring project that we set up in one

school became sustainable and the school now

runs its own scheme, which involves all the pupils,

with the senior pupils mentoring the more junior

ones. It’s also very satisfying when so many peo-

ple who have been mentored in our programmes

now tell us that they have become mentors.

What are your biggest challenges?

The biggest challenges as a mentor are the things

outside the area of my influence. For example,

when I’m supporting a young person who is strug-

gling in a relationship with their parents and, in

fact, it’s the parents who need support. Or when

a young person is struggling at school and the

school doesn’t want to work with you.

If Yorkshire Mentoring suddenly received a

windfall donation, how would you spend it?

I’d use it on our “Women Supporting Girls” proj-

ect. It’s at the pilot stage at the moment, but I’d

like every girl at school and in the community in

Wakefield here in Yorkshire to be able to receive

the support of a mentor if she requested it.

aspiration

[)ÄspE(reIS&n]

, Ambition,

Bestrebung

design sth. [di(zaIn]

, etw. konzipieren

enterprise

[(entEpraIz]

, Unternehmen;

hier: Unternehmer-

tum

entrepreneur

[)QntrEprE(n§:]

, Unternehmer(in)

entrepreneurial

[)QntrEprE(n§:riEl]

, unternehmerisch

(denkend)

fund sth. [fVnd]

, etw. finanzieren

look to do sth.

[)lUk tE (du:]

, hier: erwägen,

etw. zu tun

mental [(ment&l]

, hier: psychisch

mentee [)men(ti:]

, Mentee, von

einem Mentor/einer

Mentorin betreute

Person

peer [pIE]

, hier: unter

Schülern/

Schülerinnen

pilot stage

[(paIlEt steIdZ]

, Erprobungsphase

recruit sb.

[ri(kru:t]

, jmdn. anwerben

scheme

[ski:m]

, Programm

senior

[(si:niE]

, hier: in den

höheren Klassen

sustainable

[sE(steInEb&l]

, nachhaltig;

hier: eine dauerhafte

Einrichtung

windfall donation

[)wIndfO:l

dEU(neIS&n]

, unerwartete

Spende

Mentor:

Jane Walton

Mentoring

uses a set

of skills,

knowledge

and qualities

to help

individuals