Feedback from the Field

Guest Post: Elyse Walter, Mentor Michigan Communication Specialist

I recently attended the Matching, Monitoring, and Closing Mentor Matches training held in Indian River on May 29, provided by Mentor Michigan and Michigan State University Extension.

While there, I had the privilege of sharing with participants the various tools and resources Mentor Michigan provides mentoring programs throughout the state – including the Men in Mentoring Recruitment Toolkit.

Betsy Kaylor, a Faith-Based Specialist with the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative in Traverse City, had great things to say about the Toolkit and its use in her area. She discovered it at www.mentormichigan.org after it was made public this past winter. She was previously clued into the idea of specialized male recruitment when she attend Mentor Michigan’s annual conference in November 2008.

“The Toolkit is full of terrific ideas. Plus it comes in so many formats,” Betsy says. “I immediately showed it to my boss who was so impressed he asked me to send it to other agencies so they could utilize it.”

Although Betsy says she’s yet to implement any of the training materials at any specific events, she’s headed to a training in Cadillac this summer where she hopes to share the Toolkit with many others.

Many other attendees at the May 29 training stressed the need to have materials available for recruiting male mentors in their areas – hopefully Mentor Michigan’s Men in Mentoring Recruitment Toolkit can help them do just that!