All Articles, Toolkit 4 - Developing Young Women's Leadership Through Youth Work

CHARACTER TRAIT JOURNEY

The mentoring journey for young women starts with self-awareness and goal setting; these resources are great for when the relationship or the new academic year starts. They facilitate discussions and are good food for thought to understand where the mentee is, where she wants to go, and how to get there. You then carry on with the rest of the character trait journey that will help your mentee enhance and promote her success in school and all other areas of her life.

The Project GROW character trait journey is:

Working on self-awareness

The first section of the toolkit contains tools that will promote personal growth and development by encouraging mentees to learn more about themselves, appreciate their strengths and weaknesses/areas of improvement, identify key values in their lives, and build rapport with their mentors. Completing the worksheets also enables reflection, an important life skill that helps change behaviour and develop positive habits.

Goal setting

An essential part of mentoring is goal setting. These worksheets will enable mentees to set realistic and measurable goals with the help of their mentor, and to review and potentially revise them periodically throughout the mentoring journey.

Working on confidence building

Gaining confidence will help your mentee to feel ready for life’s experiences. These worksheets aim to enable your mentee to believe in herself, feel comfortable in her true self and know her worth, which will help her connect well with others and generally feel happier.

Working on resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. These worksheets will enable mentees to understand and develop coping mechanisms for experiences that could be overwhelming in the present or future.

Working on emotional wellbeing

Emotional well-being is an important part of girls’ development. Managing their emotions can be difficult and sometimes overwhelming, so helping them remain positive as they navigate the world is a key part of mentoring. These worksheets will help girls focus on positive things when things get difficult.

Working on social competence

Social competence consists of social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural skills needed for successful social adaptation. This section will explore communication skills, friendship, and community responsibility. 

Working on academic success and attainment

The worksheets in this section contain practical activities that will help your mentee discover their learning styles, habits, and the revision techniques that best suit her at whatever key stage she is at in school. The tools aim to help mentees to be motivated and engaged with their educational outcomes and attainment. There is also a choice of website links to help with specific subjects.

Reflection Questions 

  • Do you feel you already support young women in all these areas through your youth project? Why or why not?
  • Are any of these ideas new to you? Talk about them with your team. Are they spoken about differently in your country or community? Is there resistance to talking about them, even if you use local words for some of these ideas?

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