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Donnovan began working with youth through Youth Horizons in Wichita, Kansas in 1995, first in a group home and then as the manager of their mentoring program. Donnovan attended one of CAYM’s first training events. He started helping train other ministries through CAYM in 2007 and joined CAYM’s team in 2008.
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Creators & Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hey, mentors. Just a reminder about the You Can Mentor book. It's titled You Can Mentor, How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses. The whole point of this book is to equip and encourage mentors with new tools and ideas on how to make the most of their mentor mentee relationship. If you're a mentor, hey, go pick it up.
Speaker 2:And if you're a mentoring organization, pick some up for all of your mentors. If you would like to order mass copies, like more than 20, send an email to me, zach@youcanmentor.com, and we will get you guys a special price. But go and pick up that book. It's good. You can mentor.
Speaker 3:Hello. You can mentor listener. This is John. Today, I'm sitting down talking with Donovan Carver from Christian Association of Youth Mentoring or caym.org, which I will remember to repeat later. Donovan, how are you today?
Speaker 4:Hey, I'm doing great, John. Thanks.
Speaker 3:Man, thank you for taking the time to talk today. I'm excited about what CAYM is up to and just really ready for our listeners to get to hear to be encouraged and equipped by what you guys do and and how you are serving and mentoring in so many great ways.
Speaker 4:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Now I I'm in Waco, Texas. Donovan, tell me where you're sitting today.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I I live in in Wichita, Kansas.
Speaker 3:Oh, man. Fantastic. The Heartland. Wait. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4:That's right. Yeah. We got it.
Speaker 3:Very good. Well, hey, Donovan. Man, to start off, just tell us a little bit about how how you got involved in mentoring and and what your mentoring background is.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So first of all, just for all of you who are out there helping run mentoring programs or your mentors in a mentoring program, I just wanted to say thank you to to what you're doing. And I I really commend you on your commitment and faithfulness. You know, mentoring can often be challenging and a thankless endeavor. And I I just want you to know that what you're doing is extremely valuable and you're certainly making a difference.
Speaker 4:You're not just impacting the one kid that you're meeting with, but you're going to impact their kids, so future generations.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 4:And I know it's not always easy to evaluate the impact you're having as a mentor, but one thing I like to think about is where would your kid be if you weren't involved in their life? And often, they would be in a more difficult situation. And the last thing is just that God is using you to share your love with your mentee. And so they get to see Jesus through you and that is just transformational.
Speaker 3:No kidding.
Speaker 4:So let me start. I wanna share just a little bit about my childhood that kind of, I think, will play into how I got involved in mentoring. So I was really blessed to have a great childhood. I grew up on a farm in Southwest Kansas. I had 3 brothers.
Speaker 4:My dad really taught us a strong work ethic. We had a very loving, stable family and a good church community we were involved in. And so the way I initially got involved in mentoring is a good friend of mine named Jim Presnell, who was running a mentoring program in Wichita, he asked me if I would be interested in mentoring a boy. And I didn't really know what mentoring was, but he seemed to have a lot of confidence in me. So I said, yeah, sure, I'll give it a shot.
Speaker 4:So I started mentoring when I was 23 and I got to see how kids are growing up without the opportunities that I had growing up. And none of us have any control over the family that we're born into. And I quickly realized that I could have just as easily been born into a family that had difficult circumstances, difficult environments. And I just know I would not have done well in, you know, difficult environment and circumstances. And I also know that I would have wanted to have a positive adult role model in my life to walk with me.
Speaker 4:And so, you know, I would have wanted to have a mentor. And so God has really given me a heart just to try to get mentors for as many kids that need them. And so I've been mentoring boys for the past 25 years. I helped run a mentoring program in Wichita, Kansas for over 10 years. And then I've been working with CAYM for the past 13 years, helping Christians start and grow safe, effective, and sustainable mentoring ministries throughout the US and around the world.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And and and, again, how how great was it that Jim saw this potential in you and and had a need and was able just to ask?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I I, you know, I'm I'm grateful for Jim, and, you know, I I think that's an interesting thing to keep in mind. One one of your most effective recruiting methods is just asking someone personally 1 on 1.
Speaker 3:Right. Oh, no kidding. No kidding. Man, listen. What you know, tell us about just kinda your passion for helping mentoring programs learn evidence based best practices.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, boy, when I started working in the mentoring field, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't have I had a business administration degree. I did not have any type of social work or mentoring experience other than I'd mentored a boy for a couple years. And so I really learned why mentoring best practices are important the hard way.
Speaker 4:And that is just through a lot of trials and issues. And so I really don't want other programs to have to go through those same mistakes and challenges that I went through. And the mentoring program I worked with was a grassroots program. We had 40 mentoring matches. They did not have best practices in place.
Speaker 4:And so there were just a lot of match issues, a lot of premature match endings. I felt like we were losing matches faster than we were making them. And so I I just really have a passion to help mentoring programs have a firm footing on mentoring best practices so that they can be safe, effective, and sustainable.
Speaker 3:Sure, ma'am. That makes total sense. So, Donovan, let's just just take a step back here for a second. Just talk about mentoring in general. What makes mentoring different kind of from other interventions that youth can be involved in?
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's that's a a great question. You know, the key to a successful mentoring match is that a mentor and mentee, they're able to build a trusting relationship. And it's it's out of the trusting relationship that both the mentor and mentee learn and grow from each other. So the intervention of mentoring, it requires a mentor to intentionally pursue the mentee over a long term period.
Speaker 4:And so, sometimes that could be 2, 5, 10 or more years. And this is something mentors cannot do on their own. They really need to have a match supervisor that helps keep the mentoring match on track. So this makes it somewhat unique compared to other interventions that youth are involved in, like counseling or group mentoring or after school programs. So with that being the case, you really need mentoring best practices in order to allow the trust relationship to start, grow and maintain over a long period of time.
Speaker 4:And so I've got a story. I had a guy when I was working on a mentoring program. He came here. He was interested in being a mentor. And so when we were in our interview, he was telling me that just 6 minutes earlier, he had tried to start mentoring a teenage boy on his own.
Speaker 4:He he there there was this homeless teenage boy outside his with his work, and so he thought, you know, I'm gonna try to help this kid. And he said it was a complete disaster. He said it only lasted a week and he was so frustrated because of the communication challenges and and, just the differing expectations. And so what what was what's always stuck with me is is when I talked to him about how we train mentors so that they're prepared, know what they're getting into, and we also provide a match supervisor that's there to walk with them and and help them walk through any issues. He was so excited because he fully understood how important those practices are.
Speaker 4:And so I just say that in that, because mentoring, it involves developing a long term trusting relationship, it it takes best practices in order to to, you know, allow that trust to grow.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure. Okay. So, already, Donovan, you're kinda giving us some gold here and some really good things. You're you're saying things like match supervisor, which is a new term for me. I totally get it, and I understand what you're sharing.
Speaker 3:I it just makes me think real quick that this is you know, you have so many, I think, out there who understand the power of mentoring and really want to mentor youth and someone and and help kinda bring someone along in a healthy friendship and in a relationship that there would be good communication and really just someone kind of looking out for someone else, but without some of that infrastructure, right. And without, without that accountability, without being able to speak into, know, what expectations are there and what I would think is just kind of a communal effort. Right? So that it's not just someone kind of doing it out on their own, but instead having the support of that match supervisor or an organization, it just seems like, well, this really is the way to do it. This is the way, as you said, that you can kinda keep this that this would be sustaining, and it wouldn't just be something that that lasts for a few weeks and then fizzles out because there's there's no kinda community involved.
Speaker 3:Right? So I I get that, and I think that's again, speaks to your credit of of your experience and what CAYM does, which is to offer those types of services for those that that want to to be mentors.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Absolutely. You're you're right on target, John.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of great stuff there. Okay. So match supervisor. So listener, if that's new to you, just you know, I think that that's that's probably worth the ticket of listening to this podcast even today of thinking, man, it's so good that there are those out there that are working to make sure that these relationships are really optimized. Speaking to that, Donovan, tell us, how do you ensure that a mentoring program is safe and that it is effective and that it is sustainable?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So most harm done by mentoring programs is mentors who do not follow through on their commitment. So, you know, you've got a kid, they've been let down by adults in their past, you bring this mentor into their life, and then they don't follow through on their commitment. And the kid feels rejected, and that can be just extremely hurtful for that kid and it can really deter them from wanting to trust adults in the future. So, the standard for evidence based mentoring best practices is the elements of effective practice for mentoring.
Speaker 4:And now it's the 4th edition, is the latest edition. And that is put together by mentoring researchers and the National Mentoring Partnership or mentor. And what they do is they provide best practices around recruiting, training, training, matching, supervising, and evaluating matches. And so, CYN, we we train on the exact same best practices, but because we work with faith based programs, we put that in a Christian context. So that is a good foundation, those best practices, but you also need some additional systems in place to help minimize risk.
Speaker 4:And when you think about you know, if you're helping run a mentoring program, just a mentoring program management piece, having policy and procedures manual that your staff and the team are following, there's the whole fundraising plan, monitoring information so that it's safe and secure, risk management plan. This is just a plan that you spell out how you're implementing best practices so that everybody is safe. And we're not talking just about the mentors, mentees, families, we're talking about the staff and your board and other stakeholders as well. And then I think the other thing is, you know, just that you've got a good staff supervision and and training process in place. You know, one thing that I I've seen that is really detrimental to mentoring programs is the staff turnover, and especially that match supervisor position.
Speaker 4:They they spend a lot of effort developing relationships with the mentors and the kids and families. And if they quit, you know, the the program loses a lot of that that relational connection.
Speaker 3:Sure. That makes perfect sense. So let me get this straight, Donovan. You're are you saying that that CAYM actually offers those types of services like policies and procedures, risk management, fundraising help, and recruiting training?
Speaker 4:We yeah. Actually, we we do have trainings on those, and we actually have templates on on a lot of those that people can just plug in their information. So on a on a policy procedure manual, risk management plan, we we've got all that. Yes.
Speaker 3:No. That's excellent. So that to me just is really helpful for those those listeners who are out there who might be in kind of a grassroots mentoring program or kinda interested in in getting a program off the ground to be able to have somebody that can give those resources and kinda walk them through being able to build some of that infrastructure to really build something that that would be, again, something that a mentor could come and and join at a later time as well. So, Donovan,
Speaker 4:real quick, you
Speaker 3:you actually made a good a good point too that maybe that could be something that's pretty detrimental to an organization, and that's staff turnover. And I guess that could be, you know, for a number of reasons if maybe expectations aren't met, if accountability is not there, if there's not good communication. It sounds like that's that's really an important thing because kinda as we all know with organizations, it's much better to keep those that we have trained as opposed to looking for new new hires to train. Right? Like, that that retention is just such an important part.
Speaker 3:And, obviously, as we're trying to build these relationships with children or teenagers that would have people that would kinda stay in their lives. Right? I mean, again, we wanna wanna build mentoring relationships that last as as long as they need to. And so, again, since it sounds like all the more reason for someone to really be thinking about some of these things as they as they have a heart for for mentoring and understand about mentoring best practices. Could you could you just maybe talk a little bit about some of the specific pitfalls that mentoring programs may be experiencing by not valuing or or or not really pursuing best practices?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I I've got a couple different points here. I'll just kinda walk through, and these aren't necessarily in any specific order, but we've certainly seen programs focus on bigger match numbers really at the cost of providing quality assurance. So they focus more energy on recruiting than providing match support.
Speaker 4:And a lot of times, we've seen these programs that they get some grant money to make a specific number of matches, and so they're kinda stuck. They've gotta make the matches to fulfill the grant. And so we've consulted multiple programs like this, but we recently just had one that said, we don't have time to train our staff on best practices. We have to start making matches now. I think another one is some programs they can frame mentoring to mentors as being easy.
Speaker 4:And I can say when I started, that's how I was framing it to mentors because we were trying to get mentors to be a part of the program. And the truth is mentoring is not easy. And so saying it's easy really gives mentors the wrong expectation. So when things get challenging, they think, well, I'm not a good mentor because this is supposed to be easy. And so it's a lot more helpful to say mentoring is hard, but we are here to train and support you through the entire match process.
Speaker 4:I I think a lot of a lot of programs struggle to grow their program. And so a big part of growing a mentoring program is is retaining the matches you have long term. And so if programs are not following best practices, what they end up doing is they often lose matches faster than they can make new ones. Another pitfall is premature match endings. And the mentors, mentees, and parents, they go into mentoring without proper expectations.
Speaker 4:So when their expectations are not met, they want to fix. It is so important that you help prepare the mentors for what they're gonna encounter. And it's important that you help the mentors and parents to understand what the expectations are, what the guidelines and boundaries are. So having agreements that they would sign. We also see programs that don't regularly evaluate what's working and not working and then make adjustments on that.
Speaker 4:So a very helpful process that we did every year was at the end of the year, we would evaluate where and how we recruited all of our mentors. And we also evaluated why our matches ended that year. And, you know, we we would assess them. What what adjustments do we need to make in our mentoring programs? So so let's say, we had, you know, 6 mentors quit because there was instability in their life.
Speaker 4:Well, we would say, what, you know, what adjustments can we make? Is there do we need to do a better job recruiting? Is there something in our screening process we need to tweak? Do we need to train our mentors better? Is there something in our supervision process that we need to do differently in order to help these matches sustain long term?
Speaker 4:We kinda already touched on this, John, but staff quitting and I think where you have program Well, I'll just say being a supervisor in a mentoring program, it's difficult because you deal with a lot of issues. But when a program does not following best practices, you end up dealing with even more issues that you wouldn't normally have to deal with. And so staff can get frustrated and discouraged and and so they can quit. And that's that, you know, as we already say that that can be a a detrimental to a program. And then I I think just the last thing is, oftentimes, mentoring programs are short staffed.
Speaker 4:They're trying to do everything they can to make everything happen. And so I think we've seen that the match supervision process sometimes is not as adequate as it needs to be. And the best practice states that you need to contact the mentor, mentee, and parent, you know, initially within the first 48 hours of the mentoring match, and then it's the the first 3 months, it's every other week, and then and it's once a month for the entirety of the match. And then you you wanna have a 6 month checkup with a mentor face to face, and you wanna have a 1 year meeting with everybody face to face just to to evaluate and celebrate the the match.
Speaker 3:Got it.
Speaker 4:Got it.
Speaker 3:You know?
Speaker 4:So yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:No. I'm sorry to speak over you, Donovan, but I was gonna mention your as you share so many of these good principles and points, I I'm I just I'm as a listener, I'm kind of hearing just the really the dire need for communication. It sounds like you want to begin the process by being able to share expectations so that you can maybe kind of speak against what this potential mentor might be bringing in into the relationship. Maybe they're, you know, maybe they've got kind of an angle or some expectation that isn't exactly realistic. So as you mentioned, mentoring is tough.
Speaker 3:It's not easy. So in our effort to try to bring new mentors into our programs where it's almost like evangelism. Right? It's almost like saying, you know, being a Christian is just so easy. You just accept, believe, and confess.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, that's it. A b c. When the reality of it is that being a believer, being a Christ follower is not easy. Right?
Speaker 3:It's it's it's a very difficult thing to on a daily basis to deny ourselves, to take up the our cross and to follow. So I just I see such a parallel when it comes to mentoring as well. But again, to hear about the just the the real need for communication for to be for that to be something that is valued at the beginning of this relationship all the way throughout with, with solid evaluation to kind of see like, Hey, what's working? What's not? I hear you also just say that it's, that it's up to the organization to kind of be flexible, to be able to say, Hey, what, you know, again, the most important thing is that we have healthy mentoring relationships happening.
Speaker 3:What's getting in the way of that. What's, what's making it so that we're having all of this stuff turnover and what, what kind of needs to be pivoted so that we can continue to do what we're, what we're established to do, but somehow maybe not being effective at that. And I think also just to your point of having a good communication with with Minty Family as well, how that, again, is just another layer of making sure that these that these relationships stay optimal.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's a great point, John.
Speaker 3:For sure. So okay. Now let's talk and and, you know, you've you've shared a little bit about this, but what does it really look like? I mean, when the rubber meets the road for mentors to follow best practices, maybe even speaking into this, Donovan, you know, I'm I'm kinda shooting from the hip here, but what would it look like maybe for a mentor who's listening to this conversation and getting all this good information from you, but maybe as a part of an organization that doesn't really value or or practice these best practices, How what what can they kinda glean from it and maybe how can they be encouraged to try to get into using and utilizing best practices in their in their mentee relationship?
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's that's a great question, John. So, you know, I I think there's a couple points and there's some great resources out there that can help mentors get training and so but, you know, initially, I think having a mentor orientation training and mentors, they really need to, as we've already stated, but they really need to have the proper expectations going into the mentoring. What's required of them? What's the commitment?
Speaker 4:What are the boundaries? What are the policies? And they seem to be prepared for what they're getting into. And And then the regular contact with their mentoring supervisor or coach, that's so important just for them to, at least on a monthly basis, update their coach on what's going on and if there's any issues or challenges going on that they would be able to share with them what's going on. And and the coach could help them work through those things.
Speaker 4:And then the match closure process. And and when the match ends, that that closure is brought to it. And this is super important to allow the mentor and the mentee to be able to say goodbye to each other at the end of the match. And research shows that mentors that did not have a closure process often left with a negative view of the program. And we certainly don't want our mentors and kids and families having negative view of our mentoring programs.
Speaker 3:I'm sure. Now, Donovan, this this makes me wonder, you know, in your experience with mentoring, just talk about what typically is the usual kind of timeframe for, for meetings and for communication to take place? Is it, is it the norm that, you know, and again, this might be a little bit rudimentary, but do most mentors kind of schedule a time that's usually weekly with their, their mentee. And then if that mentor has kind of a supervisor or or a match supervisor, would that typically be about a monthly meeting? Is that pretty much how it how it shakes out for a schedule?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think you're right on target. I mean, each mentoring program are you know, they they can be designed differently and as far as what they require their mentors and mentees to meet.
Speaker 4:But but, typically, you're looking at weekly or or 3 times a month, something like that. And then it's it is really what you're looking at for the mentor supervisor to connect with the mentor, parent, and and mentee on a monthly basis. So, yeah, that's that's what you're looking at.
Speaker 3:Great. Good deal. I think that's just helpful for some of us to know, like, well, again, what's the norm out there? And, again, there's plenty of different context out there, but helpful to to just really try to set our mentors up with as as much potential for success as possible. Well, Donovan, tell us as we kinda wrap up our conversation today, tell us how how one as a as a mentor or an organization can reach out to CAYM to get some additional training on on evidence based practices.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, you know, I I wanna leave you with some good news and a charge. So the good news is that if you're following mentoring best practices, you will see positive results. The charge is that the the last thing that any of us want to do is to bring harm to a kid. And mentoring research shows that if a program is not following best practices, children will be harmed.
Speaker 4:So I I want to encourage you to evaluate your mentoring program and just fill in any gaps that you have regarding mentoring best practices so that your mentoring program is safe, effective, and sustainable. And if you're not sure how to evaluate your program, that is certainly something that CAOIM can help you with. CAOIM provides training for mentoring programs on evidence based best practices in a Christian context, and we work with programs that are just getting ready to start, as well as existing programs that have been going for years. So it's been great to be on with you, John. And and, again, just wanna thank all the mentoring program staff and mentors for what you're doing.
Speaker 4:I I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, Donovan. I I'm so grateful for you in sharing this. Again, I feel like this has been kind of a a 30,000 foot flyover over some really important and and vital parts of of mentoring, not only organizationally speaking, but also just to the specific mentor. So thank you for speaking into that. I hope that this will not be the last time that we have a conversation because I think that you are are a bit of a a gold mine of knowledge and experience that I know that our our listeners will really glean a lot from.
Speaker 3:So is it is it is it fair to say that we're gonna have another conversation about some of these components that we talked about today?
Speaker 4:I I think that would be great, John.
Speaker 3:Excellent. Well, again, Donovan, thank you for what you do. Thank you for your heart for ministry and for mentoring. I'm I'm just so very thankful that CAYM exists and that it is a resource for organizations and for mentors. And so we at YCM here want to just continue to share what you guys offer because I think that it will make just as you mentioned, these best practices help to ensure that healthy mentoring is taking place.
Speaker 3:Right? That it is safe, effective, and sustainable. And so very thankful that that you good people are doing what you're doing. So keep up the good work, and I'm really hoping that we have some listeners reach out to benefit and and create that relationship. Donovan, why is it important to implement mentoring best practices?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So research by Michael Karcher and David Dubois found that the greater the number of best practices in place, the greater the effectiveness of the mentoring program. So here's some good news. I I talked to Michael Karcher a few years back, and he said that if a mentoring program is following mentoring best practices, they can expect to get the same positive results that mentoring research studies have shown on programs that have been valuable. So best practices, they really allow time for trust to grow.
Speaker 4:So think of best practices like the legs on a chair and the chair is the relationship. Now, you don't know how long it's gonna take for trust to develop with it. It could be 3 months, it could be 6 months, it could be over a year. But the best practices are legs of recruiting quality mentors, screening the right mentors and kids into the program, training the mentor as well, making good matches and providing good supervision. Hold that chair up until the trust establishes.
Speaker 4:And the more legs you have in place or best practices, the better chance you have of trust developing. So Jean Rhodes, who's one of the leading mentoring researchers in the country, she cites 4 separate mentoring research studies in her book Stand by Me that found that the common denominator for kids making it out some of the most difficult and challenging circumstances and environments is that they learn to trust one adult outside their family. And so if they can learn to trust their mentor, then they can transfer that trust other relationships in their life, which is a tremendous benefit for those kids when they're talking about their school, work, family. So earlier I mentioned I worked for a mentoring program. And back in 2004, I got training from COIM on mentoring best practices.
Speaker 4:We created and implemented a mentor recruitment plan. We implemented the COIM's 4 hour in person mentor orientation training. We implemented a supervision contact schedule, and we were able to recruit more mentors and retain them long term. And it allowed our mentoring program to grow from 40 matches to a 160 matches within about 3 years.
Speaker 3:Well, my guest today was Donovan Carver from c a y m, and again, listener, just as I was sitting here learning and gleaning a lot from what he shared from his knowledge and experience, he also mentioned some really great resources. So if you'd like to get in touch with Donovan, you can reach him at his email at donnovan@caym dotorg, and I'm sure Donovan would be happy to answer any questions or share any of those resources with you, or begin a relationship through CAYM, and how that organization can help yours. Listener, we appreciate your heart for mentoring. Thank you for investing in the lives of young people, and we want to remember and to remind you that you can mentor.