Towards minimum quality criteria for mentoring-to-work programmes

An instrument that is increasingly being used to integrate people of foreign origin into the labor market is "mentoring-to-work" in which a newcomer (mentee) and a volunteer with knowledge of the local labor market (mentor) are paired ("matched") so that the latter can help the mentee on the road to employment. It is a relatively new concept that is gaining popularity in Europe and Canada. An evaluation of start-up projects showed that mentoring practices were not always optimal. (Vandermeerschen & De Cuyper: 2018). In order to ensure that mentors and mentees can benefit from quality mentoring, regardless of the specific approach of the project, we developed minimum quality criteria for mentoring-to-work projects. Based on a comparison of 7 existing quality labels in the broader field of mentoring, a set of criteria was selected applicable to mentoring-to-work. These criteria were tested through a series of workshops with mentoring organizations in order to determine (1) their applicability to the field of 'mentoring-to-work' (2) which criteria were missing (3) whether consensus could be reached on minimum criteria. The strength of this contribution lies in the fact that it is grounded in the reality of 'mentoring to work', but also builds on both scientific and practice-related expertise in other fields of mentoring. In this respect, the result of this paper is not only a set of minimum quality criteria applicable to the field of mentoring-to-work, but also a systematic overview of existing quality criteria and a starting point and method to develop criteria within other (national) contexts and domains of mentoring.

ISBN:9789055507405

Publication year:2022

Accessibility:Open