group mentors

Group Mentors have specific needs due to the dynamic of their mentoring relationship. Rather than slowly building rapport with one individual Little Brother or Sister over several months, you only have six weeks to engage with your Littles, and you are working with a whole bunch of them at once!

For that reason, some of the approaches you take to mentoring may look a little bit different, but they are still instrumental in helping to foster a positive environment for the young people in your program and allow you to be a great role model! A group dynamic is a great way to have a ton of fun, share new experiences, and even learn a few new things.

Below are some tips and suggestions for hosting a volunteer group, along with what to expect. Remember to check out the Training Resources section of the Portal for specific instructions and how-tos to help you host your group!

We aim to always have a minimum of two volunteers hosting a virtual group. This helps to create a conversational flow in the Zoom meeting in the event some of the participants are more shy, and to get some of the more interactive activities going. It also allows you to take turns leading activities, while the other can monitor the chat or manage participant settings in the Zoom call.

In some cases, you might be the only volunteer leading the group. This will only be the case if we’ve worked with you and you have decided it’s something you’re comfortable with! Another volunteer or a BBBS NBC staff member will still be on some or all of the Zoom meeting with you, to assist with the technical aspects needed to run the virtual group.

For safety and training purposes, all BBBS NBC Virtual Groups programs are recorded for internal use by the agency. Group mentors should refrain from pausing or stopping any recording while it’s in progress. Occasionally we may contact you to ask if we can share some screenshots from a recording, for the purpose of promoting future virtual groups, but we will never use any recorded image without your express written permission.

It will take a couple of sessions for you to feel comfortable leading your Zoom group and to begin establishing a dynamic. This is perfectly normal! It’s recommended that you use some time during the first session, and additional time at the beginnings of future sessions, to do some icebreaker activities with your group to set the atmosphere.

The first five-ten minutes of a group session is always a great time to ask everyone how their week was, review any housekeeping details, provide an overview of today’s session, or recap activities from the week before. The last ten-fifteen minutes can be used for a group discussion reflecting on that day’s session.

At times, the group may become loud or confusing if multiple volunteers and children are trying to talk all at once. One tip for regaining control over a room is to mute all participants, and then you can unmute them once you’ve had the opportunity to deliver instructions or get everyone back on the same page. It’s recommended that this be used as a last resort and that you always let your Littles know first, in a lighthearted way, that you’re temporarily muting everyone so you can hear better.

It may also be worthwhile, depending on your group’s dynamic, to remind them of “taking turns” talking as part of housekeeping (although this is tough to do on Zoom even under the best of circumstances!), and to advise them ahead of time that sometimes you might place everyone on mute. It’s also recommended you mute everyone whenever you are playing a video.