Winning Futures – Inspiring and preparing youth to succeed through mentoring.

Archive for September, 2011

A great way to support students in career exploration is to show an interest!  A resourse used at Winning Futures to help students compare and learn more about their career interests is The Occupational Outlook Handbook website – http://www.bls.gov/oco/.

By providing information on careers, students will be better prepared to set their education goals!

Ways to use the Occupational Outlook Handbook site—

~To find out about a specific occupation or topic, use the Search
box that is on every page…you enter your search term in the box.
~To find out about the many occupations, browse through listings using the Occupation
link that is on the left side of each page.
~For a listing of all occupations in alphabetical order, go to the A-Z Index and select a letter.

A special thank you goes out to www.IwearYourShirt.com for adopting Winning Futures today!  They are doing an entire social media campaign about our workbooks for teens!  Check out some of the creative videos on their website.  Here are a few direct links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lynSKCfTKc&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFwhpxFec0Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mntu3goZQ

My Winning Futures mentor is the definition of support system.  She was always motivating and inspiring not just our mentoring group, but everyone around her.  She has showed us that any future we desire is obtainable through hard work, education, and persistence.  She made me believe in myself.

-2011 Warren Mott High School Graduate

The purpose of this activity is for the mentors and mentees to become familiar with all the adult volunteers and for the mentees to become acquainted with their own mentors.

A quick way that this can be done is by asking each mentor/volunteer to stand and share (in 30 seconds or less) the following to the group:
• Your name
• Company
• What the company does
• Title and position
• Fun fact about yourself

The next portion of the class is an individual mentoring activity.  Mentors are asked to share a little bit about themselves and the company they work for with students. Mentors come prepared to talk about the inner workings of the company with a visual item(s) that represent them and the company.

Before the first class, mentors need to be alerted that they need to bring in interesting, physical items to show their teams. This is a great way to pull mentee(s) into a conversation. Mentors are required to bring in any of the following items to help them obtain an accurate picture of what their companies do and/or to share who they are as a person.

SUGGESTED SAMPLES:

• Small parts or products your organization makes
• Organizational chart – with the intent of showing the relationship and support structure among various jobs within your organization
• Company brochures, newsletters, employee handbook
• List of entry-level jobs and a list of occupations that require continuing education (college or technical training)
• Awards or recognitions
• Photos
• Items that represent your interests and hobbies

In the Winning Futures classroom, it is proven time and time again how much one hour a week can impact a student.

Do you have a mentoring story you would like to share?

Why did you sign up to mentor?

What did you gain from mentoring?

Why should someone else mentor?

What was the biggest benefit to your mentee?

Let us know your thoughts on one or all of these questions!