Giving Compass' Take:

• This toolkit from MENTOR is designed to help build high-quality mentoring relationships for different categories of immigrant youth. While most of the details are targeted toward program coordinators, funders should take note of the emphasis on inclusivity and evaluation.

• Philanthropists can use these details to identify programs that are effective, and those who want to volunteer as a mentor themselves for immigrants and refugees should look to embed the tips on cultural competencies into their practices.

• Here's how mentors benefit from a listening mindset.

Mentoring Immigrant Youth: A Toolkit for Program Coordinators is a comprehensive resource that is designed to offer program staff important background information, promising program practices and strategies to build and sustain high-quality mentoring relationships for different categories of immigrant youth. Mentoring Immigrant Youth: A Toolkit for Program Coordinators acts as a supplemental guide to MENTOR’s How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice — a step-by-step toolkit that provides tips and strategies for developing and strengthening youth mentoring programs.

Included in this resource, you will find five chapters that focus on skills needed to design, plan, manage, operate and evaluate programming specifically for immigrant youth in your area. Each chapter has a series of “ready-to-use” tools, templates and training exercises that will take you through the different steps necessary to build or strengthen mentoring relationships that hold the potential to make a difference in the lives of new Americans. In addition, highlighted case studies are included throughout this resource to showcase practices that might be useful to replicate in your own program.

Download the full PDF on mentoring immigrant and refugee youth at ERIC.