Case Studies - Lisa's experience

 

Lisa from Linklaters

 

Not long after I began working at Linklaters, I heard about the Hackney Schools Mentoring Programme. I went to a lunchtime meeting to find out a bit more about it and following this decided it would be a good thing to get involved with. It seemed like an excellent way of giving something back to the community and assisting the younger generation with their development through interacting with adults in a working environment. It seemed a novel approach to help mentees build their confidence through practical and written exercises designed to help them with their career development and social skills.

 

So it was that I found myself one afternoon on a bus to the Skinners’ Companies’ School for Girls with other mentors from Linklaters talking about what we should be expecting when we arrived. This was to be our first meeting with all of the girls from the school who wanted to be involved in the mentoring programme and we would be talking to them in groups so that they could form an opinion about each of us and decide who they would like to pick as their mentor. We all imagined that the girls would be typical shy teenagers, perhaps a little nervous of meeting us and undoubtedly a little withdrawn and quiet. We imagined we would have to carry the conversation and try to encourage them to talk about themselves and come out of their shells. The reverse was true!

 

We arrived to a school hall full of confident, articulate and intelligent young women, none of whom seemed particularly shy or withdrawn. In fact it was us adults who seemed more reluctant to talk. There was a frantic hour and a half of dodging questions fired at us from the groups of girls including “What music do you like?”, “Where do you shop?”, “Do you have a boyfriend?”, “What can you do for us as our mentor?”. Put on the spot, we all became acutely aware of how out of touch and perhaps untrendy we were, with the younger generation. I left fearing that my sensible answers would be of no interest to girls who seemed far more interested in my mobile phone and shoes than the fact that I was a solicitor and a potential mentor.

 

However, to my relief, I was picked by three wonderful girls who I went to meet a week later. Cemgul, Fidan and Eylem seemed genuinely delighted that they had got me as their mentor and quickly made me feel at ease. We caught the bus back to Linklaters and I showed them around the office and to Silks, the staff restaurant where we would be having our weekly sessions.

 

The first couple of sessions were really spent just getting to know each other over hot chocolate and sweets provided by Silks. I asked them to bring photos of their family and friends in and we talked about our respective backgrounds. The girls are all of Turkish descent and I come from New Zealand. I used to waitress in a Turkish restaurant part-time when at school and so we discovered we had a common interest - Turkish food! A few weeks later I realised how considerate and lovely my mentees were when they brought me baklava, my favourite Turkish dessert.

 

As the sessions progressed we covered things such as writing CVs, applying for jobs, answering interview questions, choosing careers as well as playing games designed to test memory recall, word association and quick thinking. The sessions started off weekly while we all got to know one another and now some six months later we see each other once a fortnight. We usually have our sessions in Silks or when we are doing exercises such as interview techniques and presentation skills, I book a conference room for us.

 

In finding out what careers the girls are interested in getting into, I have also tried to organise guest speakers from their chosen industries to impart their views of the profession and give the girls an insight into what “real work” in various professions is all about.

 

Whilst the academic side of mentoring is important for the girls, such as the careers advice and presentation skills they take away from the programme, equally important are the social aspects of the sessions as this aspect keeps mentoring fun. We have been on out of office excursions - We went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Mario Testino exhibition and are planning to go and see the Games On exhibition at the Barbican.

 

It is hard to believe that our year will shortly be up. It has been a wonderful experience and however small my contribution to my mentees’ development has been, I hope it has been worth it for them. Certainly it has been worth it for me - I feel like I have probably learned more from my mentees than they have from me, especially when it comes to things like text messaging and teenage slang!

 

I think I have been lucky in that I have three confident, intelligent and thoughtful girls as my mentees who have always fully contributed to the mentoring sessions and made them a lot of fun.

 

I would advise someone thinking of getting involved to do so. It’s a cliché but true - there is absolutely nothing to lose but everything to gain. It can take up as much or as little time as you like and it’s a fantastic learning experience for both mentors and mentees alike.

 

Cemgul, Fidan and Eylem have become more like my friends than anything and I hope that it is a friendship that will continue long after the mentoring programme stops.