The SAYes Mentoring training academy offers courses based on the latest behavioural and social science (including cognitive neuroscience). All volunteer Mentors currently have access to introductory mentor training, workshops, support sessions and masterclasses.
A VISION OF THE WORLD POSSIBLE THROUGH MENTORSHIP
Hours
HOUR
months
SAYes Mentoring encourages applications from volunteers anywhere in the world with a variety of lived experiences. You are best positioned to mentor if you are independent, knowledgeable and experienced, with great networks, a secure relationship style, and a passion for the next generation.
Connecting Nike staff from across EMEA with youth coaches with Sport for Development partners in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Connecting LSEG staff from across EMEA with young people in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
SUPPORTED BY
Connecting AP Partners with Gold Youth alumni and Maharashi Institute students in South Africa.
“The training and support given by the SAYes team is amazing – they are there for you throughout the entire process and on hand if you have any worries or concerns. I never thought I would become a mentor, but I am so pleased I challenged myself and took on the role.”
31% ‘Extensively’, 63% ‘A lot’, and 6% ‘a little’
100% of mentors believe the programme realistically achieved the aim of inspiring and informing leaders of social change:
41% ‘Extensively’, 59% ‘A lot’
100% of mentors said the programme led to positive life outcomes for their mentee:
29% ‘Extensively’, 65% ‘A lot’, 6% ‘moderately’
“Seeing my mentor’s mentality about life changing was a constant motivation to be present to their journey… Feeling the impact I had on someone’s life made the level of responsibility I carry in my community clear to me.”
Personally: 33% ‘Life-changing’, 60% ‘Much positive’, 7% ‘Some positive’.
Professionally: 31% ‘Life-changing’, 38% ‘Much positive’, 31% ‘Some positive’
100% of mentors became more comfortable with social and cultural diversity:
29% ‘Extensively’, 29% ‘A lot’, 24% ‘A moderate amount’, 18% ‘A little’
“I am a better manager, more present, aware, and able to ask the right questions. In my personal life, I became someone that listens more and keeps an open mind, without judgement and trying always to understand the other person’s point of view.”
Within a leadership self-assessment, mentors scored their ability to motivate others to act strategically as most impacted (92%)
100% of mentors said they would be interested in mentoring again with SAYes.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed connecting with someone at the other side of the world, in a completely different contextual environment, at a different stage in life. We still managed to found common ground to discuss / share perspective / build options within themes that were important to them.”
“The way I approach my challenges the tools are phenomenal and easy to apply. This has changed the way I deal and approach people especially when faced with difficult situations.”
Active Listening
Perspective Sharing
Socratic Questioning
Motivational Interviewing
Scaffolding
Championing
Boundaries & Attachment
Authoritative Balance
Accessible, responsible,
& emotionally
engaged
Consciousness raising
Raise awareness and acceptance.
Enriching opportunities
Explore and discover new interests
Improving focus
Plan and pursue goals
Accountability & resIlience
Evaluate and adjust
SAYes programmes target improvements in independence (via the quality of decision making) and well-being (via the consistency of healthy practices) across ten domains:
How can you grow knowledge, creativity and understanding?
How can you become skilled; in ways which are useful to others, and in managing your money?
How can you look after a household; and manage all this involves?
How can you add more pleasure, fun/flow and meaning to your life?
How can you connect, lead and strengthen communities?
How can you create, maintain and repair relationships?
How can you understand and manage your feelings in action?
How can you look after your body?
How can you look after your mind?
How can you build your own story?
Prospective Mentors and Mentees are taught to understand and contextually apply expertise from interdisciplinary behavioural and social science (including cognitive neuroscience), and have access to actionable and personalised tools, tactics and strategies for positive behavioural and perspective change.
SAYes content is delivered in monthly group settings (workgroups and support sessions, and masterclasses) as well as in individual appointments with SAYes Transition Specialists.
All content is designed to be used relationally, that is, with a mentor – and to target multiple levers for behaviour change.
Prospective Mentors begin their journey by completing a comprehensive online application, followed by a structured 90-minute interview. At the interview, you will learn about the role of a SAYes Mentor and the time investment involved, so that together, we can decide if mentoring is the right social change opportunity for you.
Mentor training comprises of:
video call tutorials
A transition specialist will discuss the current mentorship programmes available on a video call, and may make a recommendation.
You are matched with a mentee through a process facilitated by SAYes considering your interests, values and personality. Mentees choose their own mentor. All SAYes matches are same gender.
Formally initiating your mentorship.
A SAYes Transition specialist will formally initiate your mentorship, and facilitate a conversation about how each of you would like SAYes values and virtues to be applied in your relationship. You will agree with your mentee on a date and time to meet weekly.
You will also cover policies and procedures, mandatory reporting, SAYes helplines, and ongoing support available from your transition specialist.
One-to-one conversations focused on your development and growth (video calls).
Weekly one-to-one mentoring sessions with your mentee begin. You will support your mentee in the development and implementation of a structured and personalised transition plan, through 4 stages over 9 months covering 10 life domains.
The majority of SAYes programmes are online e-mentorships – in person options are also available.
Online monthly domain-focused workshops accessing tools, tactics and strategies.
On 4 occasions over the 9-month mentorship, your transition specialist will join your weekly meeting to assist in the development of your transition plan. These meetings are an opportunity for SAYes to role-model our mentorship approach, as well as to support the progress of your transition plan and provide additional tools, tactics and strategies. Additional meetings can also be scheduled.
We celebrate, reflect on, and acknowledge you and your mentee’s commitment to the mentorship journey looking back on the process of growth and change.
Returning mentors and mentees are matched with a new mentor/mentee.
Mentors and mentees complete self-assessments and evaluations on the impact of mentorship.
Your Transition Specialist is hands on, always available to support you and your mentee throughout the 9-month mentorship.
Our teams are skilled in relationship management, person-centred transition work, and enhancing ecosystems of support for young people and work closely with local community partners.
Our transition specialists undertake ongoing training courses with SAYes to improve their competency with interdisciplinary behavioural-change interventions and to deliver these credibly to mentors and mentees alike. They identify statutory and clinical concerns and regularly liaise with other development professionals to coordinate support.
UK Programnes Lead & Transition Specialist
Partner Programmes Lead & Transition Specialist
SA Programmes Lead & Transition Specialist
Transition Specialist
Transition Specialist
Our Transition Specialists are also supported by SAYes Mentee Liaisons
“I feel very privileged to have a dedicated Transition Specialist. She responds quickly to my messages and any concerns, so I feel supported in my position as mentor and feel like there’s no question I couldn’t ask her.
In our group conversations, my transition specialist is an excellent facilitator, getting quickly to the heart of an issue and leaving no stone unturned. She is quick with a smile and a joke, making every call a pleasure.”
Aisling Henrard
The SAYes mentor application is based on best-practice research standards for mentorship, and includes extensive probes on all 10 domains covered in the mentorship programming. It is followed by a structured interview, informed by data from your application. Data are not shared with any external parties (including our corporate partners) except as may be required by law.
At SAYes we believe that everyone can contribute to effective and meaningful social change. Mentoring is one such opportunity, and it has a specific set of requirements for both the time commitment involved and the nature of the role. It is our responsibility to ensure that mentoring is the right fit for anyone seeking to get involved in SAYes programmes. This amounts to ensuring that volunteers understand the time commitment and the nature of the role involved, and ensures we don’t create disappointment on either side.
A history of mental illness does not automatically exclude your application. We will ask if you have suffered mental illness, or significant trauma, in the last 5 years. This includes substance use disorders such as alcohol abuse. Interviewers are trained to record and respond to these questions in a professional, dignified and compassionate manner.
Ensuring volunteers are well-suited to working with under-served young people is essential to ensuring that mentees and mentors are kept safe from both intended and unintended harm, and that mentors and mentees get the support that they need.
Where significant, ongoing and untreated distress is noted, applicants are encouraged to seek professional mental health support and to reconsider mentorship in the future.
SAYes works with volunteers from all over the world and currently focus on young people in England and South Africa. We are legally required, for purposes of child and youth protection, to ensure all volunteers undergo background screening appropriate to their role. This keeps our community of mentors, mentees and staff safe from bad actors.
A criminal record does not automatically exclude you from mentoring but failure to disclose a local (to your country of current residence) or international (previously resident country) record will disqualify your application.
SAYes WILL NOT share personalised data. Data protection is a legitimate concern for both SAYes mentors and mentees internationally. View our data protection policies and privacy notice below:
Most change fails because it fails to consider how powerful social human beings are.
This insight is the foundation for SAYes mentorship approach: We have found that the best way to create lasting change is through relationships.
When high value social connections are structured and supported, they profoundly accelerate skills, values and knowledge in any area of life.
We understand the nature of this structure and support, and have used our knowledge to develop and deliver mentorships that have deeply improved life outcomes for thousands of young people since 2008.
No it doesn’t. The SAYes Mentoring process is currently free, thanks to funding from individual donors as well as from corporates, trusts, foundations and government, such as the London Stock Exchange Group, the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Mayor of London’s New Deal for Young People, the UK National Lottery, and the Astra Foundation.
Yes. We believe that if you don’t have one hour a week for social change, you need two! We can help you find a mentoring programme that best fits your schedule. Whether you run your own business or are recently retired, there are simple ways to build an effective social change routine into your life. During your appointment with our transition specialists we will explore programme and social change options based on your location, weekly schedule and after-hours commitments. All our mentoring programmes are based on one hour of one-to-one mentoring per week. There are both in-person and e-mentoring (via WhatsApp video call) programme options. If together we don’t think the time is a good fit for you right now, we can help you find other ways to support social change.
Yes. The SAYes approach to mentoring is called Transition Mentoring. It is simple, effective and it can be taught. We developed Transition Mentoring because we were unhappy with the limited impact of behavioural change interventions in general, and of informal mentoring in particular. Our approach is rigorously evidence-based, grounded in the latest findings from the behavioural and brain sciences as well as applied insights from social work, relationship counselling, popular psychology/self-help, parenting, coaching and management.
As a transition mentor, you are trained to manage the relationship through which programme interventions are then delivered. Great relationships, structured and supported, are simply the best way to deliver content that matters. This is as true for a young person in a care home as it is for a young professional in the workplace. Transition Mentoring finds application in education, development, health and business, which is why SAYes Transition Mentorship training is regularly requested by fellow non-profits, community groups, health care providers, private and government schools, as well as corporates interested in in-house mentoring.
Transition Mentorship training helps you develop the knowledge, skills and values useful for your own relationships and for engaging others in building meaningful connection and community, whether at home, in the workplace or in your neighbourhood. Many of our mentors also find that a specialised focus on transition combined with access to the SAYes Individual Transition Plan helps them to plan and effect meaningful and comprehensive change in their own lives.
To mentor on one of the SAYes social change programmes twenty four hours of pre-programme Transition Mentorship training is required. Training takes place via live online classes and self-paced video lectures. Training is limited to small groups to ensure personalised and professional instruction. In addition SAYes provides ongoing mentorship training for mentors, including transition appointments, weekly proactive support, mentor support groups and a masterclass schedule throughout your mentorship.
We have programmes that follow the calendar year and programmes that have rolling start dates throughout the year. There are always mentees waiting to be matched with a new mentor. For our annual programmes, first quarter (Jan, Feb, March) pre-programme activities include online mentor application, in person interview, training and matching. One-to-one mentoring then takes place weekly from February/March through October/November.
For rolling programmes you may apply at any time and attend one of our mentorship training courses available monthly. Your 9-month programme then starts at your match contracting date (following mentor mentee matching).
Yes. SAYes mentors choose the programme and site (if applicable) for their mentoring. For our corporate partners we design programmes suited to their location and team schedules. Mentors are then individually matched using a facilitated matching process, led by the mentee. Matching employs psychometric tools to foreground important match characteristics ultimately helping the mentee choose their mentor. All SAYes matches are same gender.
Yes. Groups of SAYes mentors get together for workgroups, support groups and masterclasses with their mentees during the year. Most programmes run five workgroup sessions, each focused on specific domains related to independence and well-being. The purpose of workgroups is to introduce evidence-based content known to improve independence and well-being and to facilitate perspective sharing from mentors and mentees. Group support sessions are repeated at different times throughout the year and attended by mentors and mentees across all our programmes, depending on the stage they are at with transition planning (Context, Options, Goals, Revised). Five masterclasses are offered throughout the year for custom and global programmes, each focused on a specific lever for behaviour and perspective change (feelings, beliefs, explanations, habits, conditions). SAYes non-profit and corporate partners also offer their own content to SAYes matches throughout the year. Mentors decide with their mentees which of these activities they might like to attend together.
Once a match has been made, mentors and mentees are required to honour their commitment to the mentoring relationship. SAYes programme support specialists work hard to support each match by keeping in regular contact with the homes, mentees and mentors. Many mentoring relationships extend informally beyond the duration of the SAYes programme, however this is not required. Youth who re-enrol in the programme are always matched with a new mentor.
Mentees and mentors who complete 65% -70% of their scheduled weekly meetings receive a graduation certificate. Mentees may re-enrol up until 32 years of age. Mentees may also join the SAYes Alumni groups run by and for Alumni.
SAYes requires mentors to be 26 years of age or older, to have an understanding of spoken and written English, access to the Internet, a unique email address, their own mobile phone, and (for in person) ready access to transport. Mentors must also be willing to undergo a criminal background check and disclose their psychiatric history (a criminal record or history of mental illness does not necessarily exclude applicants).
Mentors check in with SAYes weekly by completing a weekly log, which takes around two minutes to fill in. Mentors and mentees also complete online forms throughout the year for both monitoring (to check on the quality of the mentoring relationship) and evaluation purposes (to note practical and developmental outcomes). Every two weeks the transition specialist assigned to your match will review progress and offer support in relation to the mentee’s Individual Transition Plan (ITP). This plan provides structure to the mentorship conversations throughout the year but is not prescriptive. It helps a great deal if the ITP is regularly updated to allow your transition specialist to resource the transition projects you are undertaking with your mentee. All check-ins with SAYes staff are carried out in English. SAYes staff also regularly engage with mentors by telephone, WhatsApp and email.
No. For in-person programmes mentors use either their own or public transport to visit their mentees weekly. For e-mentoring programmes you will need a device and internet connection that can manage (Zoom and WhatsApp) video calls. Most smart phones can manage this.
In addition to references, your application and interview, SAYes requires a criminal record check for the country in which you are resident (without exception), and for every country in which you have lived as an adult (where this is possible by electronic application from outside the region). The specific background clearance/s required (and term of validity) vary by country in accordance with local laws. After your interview SAYes will advise you of the background clearances required based on your location and location history. Please note that background clearance costs are for your own expense.
SAYes requires that prospective mentors disclose their past five-year psychiatric history, including diagnosed substance use disorders. Please note that mental illness does not necessarily exclude prospective mentors.
There are many ways to do social change and mentoring is just one of them. SAYes welcomes applications from people all over the world interested in mentorship. We comprehensively train and support the SAYes approach to mentoring (guidance, advocacy, support) and transition planning (context, options, goals, revised) – so we are confident that you can make a positive difference in this role. In our experience, you will excel at mentoring, if you have developed or are looking to develop a growth or process orientation to learning and change, if you care about sustainable social change and scientifically credible ways of achieving it, and if you are personally and professionally independent, knowledgeable and experienced, with great social capital, and a non-reactive approach to relationships.
To support the quality of decision making and consistency of healthy practices in domains affecting independence and well-being. Mentors provide guidance (knowledge, insight and perspective), advocacy (scaffolded development of skills, capacities and networks of introduction and opportunity) and support (social safety, care and encouragement) throughout a structured change process of set duration.
