My Mentoring Experience

The Healthy Buddy Program is a mentoring program for caring volunteers and grade school students. The teachers select students that they feel may benefit from a mentor and place them on a list. The academic departments at the local college then searches for volunteers among the students. Those students then donate some of their time to one of the grade school students. I participated in this program through the criminal justice department at my college and found it to be a pretty rewarding experience.

I feel that the Healthy Buddy program is only as good as you make it. My buddy was a middle child of a large family. One thing that I learned from him was a little bit of what it's like to be part of a large family with many siblings, as I am an only child. The main need of this child that I observed was attention. Being from a large family and being a little withdrawn, I don't feel like he gets much attention at home. I addressed his need for attention by asking him open ended questions and letting him talk to me. At first he was a little shy but after a few days he began to open up and share with me a lot. The speaking and listening skills I have acquired and enhanced through my criminal justice studies helped me to meet my buddy's needs. My prior experiences as a tutor, babysitter, and mother helped me to be patient with my buddy as he completed his homework and shared stories with me. This experience is valuable to me because it gave me yet another experience to work with children. As I plan on working with children in a juvenile justice setting, this experience along with others like it will help me to relate to and help other youths I encounter.