Widening our options: Becoming a mentor

With many of my coaching clients who are leaning towards being child-free is a desire to have a role in the life of a child or young person although they may not want (or be able to have) childre of their own. So one thing we do is to explore their options - what are some of the other ways that they can be involved in a child's life?

I came across this fantastic article in the NY Times called Mentors Life-Changing Bond. It looks at a unique project whereby a child from an at-risk family meets with a mentor every week for 4 hours for 12 years - from kindergarden to high school. This has a significant impact on the life of the children.

While most mentoring projects do not work over this time scale, many do encourage people to build mentoring relationships with children over several years. In the UK, there are many projects that are looking for mentors to support children and young people in deprived backgrounds and the charity CSV has many opportunities for this work.