Athena's Legacy: Preparing Women for a Mentoring Program

Abstract

A community based research study conducted in 2004 identified a number of women from disadvantaged communities who sought mentoring in personal, educational, and vocational aspects of their lives. Informed by this earlier research, a program titled Map Your Future was developed and a pilot mentoring program commenced in 2005. This paper describes the group program that was developed to prepare the women for a mentoring relationship, and the research methodology underpinning its development. It concludes with an exploration of the women's experiences of the program.

Challenging Gender Role Stereotypes and Creating Pathways for Goal Achievement

“…Thus the group operated as a self-help, mutual aid support system in which participants mentored one another (Boddy et al, 2008).…”

Inspiring hope through social work practice

“…Relational practices extend to mutual aid group work, where social workers discuss hope as both a core goal and an outcome of any social work intervention program. Such groups are characterised by facilitated, structured and mutual support (Mancini et al, 2013), information sharing and problem-solving (Glaser and Glassman, 2014), healing (Allen and Wozniak, 2014), and connecting past experiences with present situations and future hopes to identify strengths and elicit new goals (Allen and Wozniak, 2014; Boddy et al, 2008; Long and Frederico, 2014). Groups are important in providing hope (Arndt et al, 2009), visualising a better future with a positive sense of self (Long and Frederico, 2014) and developing an inner sense of temporality and future (Nedderman et al, 2010).…”

Doctoral research from a feminist perspective: Acknowledging, advancing and aligning women’s experience

“…Before commencing the mentoring program, preliminary research was undertaken with women in local communities to investigate their perception and understanding of mentoring and what they wanted so as to establish a shared understanding and project agenda (Langan and Morton, 2009). It was agreed that the mentoring program would: (i) create pathways for women to fulfil their aspirations; (ii) use participatory approaches to involve women in the design of the mentoring program; and (iii) assess its outcomes (see Boddy, Agllias, Gray et al, 2008;Boddy, Agllias and Gray, 2012).…”

“…The feminist shift from a hierarchical, competitive and objective learning and work environment to a learning community of trust, caring, cooperation and acknowledgement was also epitomised in a PhD support group (Goeke et al., 2011). In many ways, the PhD support group mirrored the group process that occurred within the mentoring program (see Boddy et al., 2008). It operated as a space in which participants felt a sense of belonging as we shared our common experience of study.…”