Mentoring

Mentoring

From Page B1

to provide consistent support throughout the relationship.

In order to continue improving the mentors’ training, Lucking attended VA Mentoring Partnership’s “Training the Trainer” workshop in Richmond this year. As a member of the National Mentoring Organization, she keeps abreast of current trends nationwide, attempting to bring new ideas to the program. She continues to support ongoing relationships with volunteer professional consultants such as licensed professional counselors and social workers.

“Mentors often need help discussing their own emotions, and also some children have difficulty bonding with adults, it takes them a long time to trust,” said Lucking who believes the professional consultants help the group to deal with difficult issues such as these.

Not a parent substitute

“Mentors are not meant to take the place of a parent,” Lucking pointed out. “It’s so useful to have several supportive adults in a young person’s life— people with different outlooks on life, so that young people can see themselves through others’ eyes, find out what resonates with them.” Lucking’s own teenaged children have other adults in their lives besides their parents that they feel connected to, talk with, and seek guidance from, she said.

This year the Luckings hosted a Norwegian foreign exchange student, 17-year-old Ida Engen. “I get to be her mentor—we are having so many wonderful conversations which she says she could never have with her mother, and which I probably couldn’t have with my own daughters. There’s just a different relationship when you’re an ‘outside’ adult.”

“Starfish grew in a very ‘organic’ way,” remembered Lois Manookian, who co-founded the program with Judy Tble in 1997. “Everything was volunteer, we had ho concept of a paid staff.” Within a year, however, the group realized they’d need at least some funding. “It gradually occurred to us that we needed to be sponsored, and Headwaters was the obvious organization to support us,” continued Manookian. “We were not into fundraising— we had our hands full trying to create a first-rate program. It was going somewhere! That means you can’t let people down.”

Since Headwaters “adopted” the program in 2001, with the exception of a one-time $5,000 grant received from Piedmont United Way, the Rappahannock community has covered all of Starfish’s operating costs.

This January, to complement the Rappahannock News’ series of articles on Starfish, local businesses are contributing funds to the program in honor of National Mentoring Month. “It’s such a great program, and there are so many kids this makes a real difference for. In fact, I am thinking of becoming a mentor myself!” explained Beverly Atkins of Piedmont Properties, one such sponsor. Business sponsors are identified by the “We Support Starfish Mentoring” graphic on their ads in the paper.

By accident, Carol Lucking happened to run into Starfish’s first graduate over the holidays. The student was visiting her former high school art teacher, Ms. Sours, and Lucking was there to ask Ms. Sours if she knew of another art student who might be a good match for the young woman’s former mentor, a local artist.

“It’s funny how things come full circle,” said Lucking. “This year we have more graduates going off to college or choosing other positive futures. These successes spur us on as an organization to continue to work to see the kids through, whether they stay in the community or leave, to help them find what their own unique vision is for their future.”

Special thanks to the Rappahannock News and Starfish’s other local business sponsors. Tb find out how to become a mentor, to request a mentor for a child, or to donate funds or become a business sponsor, please call Paige Coombs at 675-1819.