Kiersten L. Hallquist  

While working at Mercy Connections as an intern in the Justice & Mentoring Program, I underwent the full mentor training. I also attended official programming, including but not limited to the annual Harvest Feast, monthly in-person mentor support groups, and the 15-year anniversary reception celebration with mentors and program leaders. My time at Mercy Connections provided a wonderful and unique opportunity to absorb institutional structure and culture. As such, I could gauge what mentors struggle to understand early in their development in the program. As I wrapped-up my mentor training, began meeting with other mentors, and started imagining myself matched with a mentee, questions and perceived needs arose.

 

I set out to research, in-depth, the definition of prosocial behaviors, how prosocial development might be specific to the mentees in the program (forces for and against prosocial development), and what tools might the VWMP develop to further support their mentors to engage in prosocial development with and for their mentees. I generated a summary of my findings and the support tools (some personally-developed) at an in-person training (session four of the spring mentor training offering). I later recorded the training in a webinar format, so I could provide it to the program for future use, or to post to one of our new forums for existing mentors.

 

I also presented a comprehensive overview of my research and tools in the form of a letter written to a newly-trained mentor.