We'll next be recruiting for mentors in autumn 2021. If you want to be notified when we are, please join the Network. We'll also contact you with other ways you can volunteer and support Young Talent.
Change lives
Mentoring has the power to change lives. Mentor pairs meet for an hour every month to decide on goals for the year and then work towards achieving them. Mentees gain confidence and connections that help them to plan their next steps and succeed on their chosen path.
Our mentor volunteers are reliable, passionate and warm. Most mentors have studied an arts or humanities subject at university or have worked in the creative industries for over four years. We match mentor pairs based on their shared interests and geographical location.
We recruit new mentors every autumn. If you want to register your interest, please join our network and we’ll invite you to a mentor training session. Our training covers coaching, safeguarding and structuring mentoring sessions.
Being a mentor
Arts Emergency mentors work voluntarily with a young person over the course of a year, helping them to gain confidence, connections and the advice they need to succeed in their chosen subject/industry. With the support of Arts Emergency and our network, mentoring pairs decide on a number of goals for the year and then work towards achieving them.
Time commitment
Mentor pairs meet once a month for about an hour. Traditionally these meetings happen face to face. Because of coronavirus and social distancing, meetings may need to take place by phone or video chat. We will review guidance for this in the mentor training session.
In between sessions you may find you communicate by email. Mentoring can be flexible around your commitments. During busy periods e.g. exams, you may not meet every month but mentor pairs tend to make up for it the following month.
Locations
We are looking for mentors who are based in London, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.
Mentor traits
Our mentors are all different, which is what we love. We’re especially keen to hear from people who may have shared experience with the young people we support, such as people of colour, LGTBQIA people, disabled people and those who have identified as working class. Mentors should be able to relate well to people, be good at problem solving or talking through issues, reliable and committed and be to provide insight from their personal experiences. We ask mentors to uphold our values of being bold, optimistic and a community. We will ask matched mentors to agree to a Code of Conduct and provide a referee we can contact for a character reference.
Mentor professions
Most of our mentors have studied an arts or humanities subject at university level and/or have worked in the creative industries for 4+ years. Below is a list of the areas that our mentors have focused on throughout 2020:
- Architecture
- Fashion
- Comedy
- Journalism
- Politics & Activism
- Academia
- Dance
- Marketing
- Acting
- Music
- English Lit/Lang
- Interior Design
- Museums
- Publishing
- Art & Design
- Film & TV
- Sociology
- Art History
- Games Design
- Philosophy
- Theatre
- Music Tech
- Classics
- History
- Photography
- Writing
If your area of expertise is not on this list, let us know as we are always happy to expand it!
Matching
We’ll match you when we have a young person interested in your area of expertise. We train slightly more mentors per mentee. This helps us make the best possible match for that young person but means we are unable to match all trained mentors every year. If you are not matched, we will contact you if we do have a suitable match further down the line or when we next recruit young people. After mentors have completed training, they will hear from us by the end of November about potential mentee matches.
Training
We'll cover how the Arts Emergency mentoring programme works and all the tools you need to be an amazing mentor. At training you’ll learn transferable skills about coaching, safeguarding and structuring mentoring sessions. We’ll also answer any questions you might have about supporting a young person.
Retraining
If you have already come along to a training session, you do not need to re-train but you would be very welcome at one of our training sessions.
Safeguarding
You will need to do a short refresher on safeguarding, which we will arrange as an online session when you are matched.
Waiting lists
If the training session you want to attend is fully booked, please sign up for our waiting list on the Eventbrite page, or look at whether other training dates fit with your schedule.
Notification
We will notify our network if any more training sessions are planned, so if you are interested make sure you have signed up to our network.
Timeline
We train slightly more mentors per mentee, as this helps us make the best possible match for each young person so we are unable to match all trained mentors every year. If you are not matched in 2021, we will get in touch with other ways for you to support young people through Arts Emergency. We will also contact you if we do have a suitable match further down the line or when we next recruit young people. We will get in touch with mentors by the end of November about potential mentee matches.
If you have any questions about mentoring drop us an email.