Group mentoring affords the opportunity to extend Solomone’s efforts and reach more people in a time-efficient manner. It is solving the dilemma of mentioning many people when there are not enough mentors or money available to make one to one mentoring matches. Group mentoring is a way to honour and share the knowledge and expertise of individuals and to provide others with exposure to their specific know how. Group mentoring also avoids the perception of favouritism that can result when there are limited numbers of mentors and many potential mentees. Because group mentoring involves more than two individuals, it promotes diversity of thinking, practice and understanding. The diversity of perspectives that emerges from group mentoring interaction is a powerful motivator for development. Group mentoring supports individual accountability, establishes a more connected relationship and provides a welcome alternative for those who learn better in group settings. Group mentoring involves a group of individuals who engage in a mentoring relationship to achieve specific learning goals. There are three types of group mentors; Solomone will offer facilitated group mentoring with a future goal of working towards including some peer group mentoring.
Facilitated group mentoring allows a number of people to participate in a learning group and to benefit simultaneously from the experience and expertise of a mentor. The richness of the experience multiplies as each group participant brings personal experiences into the sessions. Solomone will ask questions to keep the sessions thought provoking and meaningful, share his own experiences, provide feedback and serve as a sounding board.
Peer-group mentoring brings together peers with similar learning interests or needs. The group is self-directed and self-managed. It takes responsibility for crafting its own learning agenda and for managing the learning process so that each member’s learning needs are met and everyone derives maximum benefit from each other’s knowledge, expertise and experience.
