Initiative for an International Qualitative Mentoring

Initiative for an International Qualitative Mentoring (2IQM) Project

The collaboration from 5 organizations from 5 countries, Adice-France, Cesie-Italy, VSA-Thailand, Liberty’s Promise-USA and Vietnam and Friend-Vietnam Volunteering, by promoting general interest, solidarity and civic commitment, is an invaluable asset to society. At the same time, a volunteering experience can be a crucial step in the definition and success of the professional/personal project of young people, improving their access to employment.

Quality tutoring of young volunteers is thus essential to the success of any volunteering experience. In the meantime, suitable tutoring benefits host organizations themselves as it contributes to the improvement of volunteers’ efficiency and, in the end, to the positive impact on the local community they are serving.

However, ensuring a qualitative tutoring in an international context can prove difficult, due for instance to poor coordination between organizations, lack of time/resources, or inadequate training of tutors.

For this reason, the Initiative for an International Qualitative Mentoring (2IQM) project aims at reinforcing and professionalizing youth organizations’ tutoring capacity and improving the quality of young volunteers’ tutoring throughout their whole experience in order to maximize its positive impact on their personal and/or professional development.

Phase 1 (P1) : Training and definition of common tutoring tools

October 2015 to March 2016

October to December 2015 : Conduction of a qualitative survey towards each partner’s volunteers (current and past) and tutors, based on a common questionnaire, to assess on a more detailed and precise basis the problems experienced by volunteers and tutors themselves regarding their tutoring ;

January 2016 : On the basis of the answers to the survey, preparation of a training course targeting the identified problems and needs ;

22-27 February 2016: Organization of a 5-days seminar in France (hosted by ADICE), 2 participants per partner organization. Participative modules : each participant will be invited to animate a module on a specific aspect of volunteers’ tutoring on which they have a strong expertise : international/European volunteering programs, hosting, interculturalism, managing volunteers’ stress, capitalization of the experience … In the outcome of the training course, common tutoring tools will be co-constructed, and a set of technical specifications will be defined in view of the production of an Online Mentoring Tool (OMT) ;

Deliverables : 1 survey conducted with at least 100 volunteers and 10 tutors, 1 training module, 1 set of common tutoring tools, 1 set of technical specifications for the OMT ;

Phase 2 (P2) : Experimentation/Testing

March 2016 to March 2017

March to June 2016 : Recruitment and preparation of EVS volunteers to be sent by ADICE and CESIE to VSA, Liberty’s Promise and VAF ;

July to December 2016: Exchange of volunteers between partner organizations through the European Voluntary Service program, for a total of 6 volunteers for 6 months each: sending organizations will send EVS to host organizations (ADICE will send 2 to VSA and 2 to Liberty’s Promise, CESIE will send 2 to VAF). The common tutoring tools defined in P1 will be applied, as well as the OMT in its Beta version.

July to December 2016: Mobility of Youth workers between partners, job shadowing. Each sending organization will send a worker for 8 days to the host organizations hosting their EVS to observe and exchange good practices “on-site”;

March 2016 to March 2017: Regular contacts and videoconferences to monitor the advance of the project, share experiences and encountered challenges.

Deliverables: 6 EVS volunteers for 6 months each, 3 Mobility of Youth workers for 8 days each, 6 videoconferences.

Phase 3 (P3) – Production of a “Good tutoring Portfolio” and final version of the OMT

April to September 2017

April & May 2017: Conduction of a new survey towards the volunteers and tutors who have experienced the common tutoring tools defined in P1 ;

April & May 2017: Preparation of a report by each partner on his comments regarding the experimentation and observation conducted in P2;

June 2017 : Final seminar in Italy (hosted by CESIE), in order to produce a “Good tutoring Portfolio” and present the final version of the Online Mentoring Tool to all partners;

June to September 2017 : Dissemination of the “Good tutoring Portfolio” and final implementation of the OMT by each partner to its own network;

September 2017: Preparation of the final report.

Deliverables: 1 survey conducted with 6 EVS volunteers and 10 tutors, 5 reports on the experimentation phase, 1 “Good tutoring Portfolio”, 1 Online Mentoring Tool.