eMentoring for schools 

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Why do your students need mentors?

click through the slideshow to learn why students need mentors and how you can help

Want to learn more about mentoring and why it is important? Visit our Why mentoring page

Ways to connect

We offer a variety of ways for your students to connect with our post-secondary student mentors. All of our offerings are provided free of charge.   

One-on-one mentoring program 

Help connect your students to their own, personal mentor! We designed this program to be flexible in order to fit into a variety of school settings. Read more about the different ways you can bring one-on-one mentoring to your school, including if you would like to use the program in a classroom setting.

Learn about how one-on-one mentoring works

Ways to implement one-on-one mentoring 

No matter how you decide to offer the program, the eMentoring staff will match the students to their mentors, set them up with and provide training on use of our online platform, and monitor all activity and report back to you. Just serve as our point of contact! We also provide a $100 stipend to help implement the program (subject to certain terms and conditions). 

Here’s some ideas for how this has looked at other schools – or you can think of your own way to implement the program!  

  • Create an eMentoring club, or offer lunchtime or afterschool sessions.  
  • Counsellors and support workers: Refer students who could benefit from having a mentor, or who could use some practice developing social skills and relationships. Research has shown that mentors can be a valuable part of youth support teams. 
  • Advertise the program and let students sign up on their own. Contact us for a flyer or social media image. We’re also very active on Instagram and Facebook, where we share a variety of resources and information about careers, post-secondary education, and mentoring, so follow us and share our posts. 
  • One-on-one mentoring for classes: Connect your whole class with our eMentors! The eMentoring staff will hand-match each student in your class to their own, personal mentor based on their career and educational interests, experiences, and personal preferences. Click on the items below to learn more. 

Classroom-based one-on-one mentoring

We designed our one-on-one mentoring program to be flexible so that it can be seamlessly integrated into a variety of classroom settings. You can treat the program like an online course, where students earn credit, or like an informal chat, or anything in between!  

Our Information for Educators Guide has some suggestions for how to work eMentoring into your course.

 

Mentoring for careers classes 

The program comes with a series of optional activities that the students and their mentors can work through together. You can choose to include some of these activities as part of your class. The activities were designed with careers classes, like Career Life Education and Career Life Connections, in mind, so many of the activities can supplement or even replace some of the content for those courses – making your job easier! 

Meeting educator needs

The majority of high school students who participate in our program do so through one of their classes, so we have made it a priority to meet YOUR needs as an educator. 

  • Tried, tested and rurally-relevant:
    • The program’s activities were custom designed to meet the unique needs of rural students. 
    • The program is in its 7th year of operation and has served over 1000 students. We have grown and improved each year! Read our yearly reports. 
  • Low instructor involvement:
    • Program tutorials, help and troubleshooting guides, and instructions are all included – no instruction required on your part!  
    • The activities are structured like an easy-to-use online course that students can work through on their own. 
    • The eMentoring staff regularly monitors all activity and will provide you with regular progress reports.  
  • Choice and flexibility:
    • Tell us your preferences and we will work with YOU to fit the program into your course.  
    • The program is designed to be flexible and work around your class’s schedule.   
  • Safe and transparent:
    • You will have full access to your students’ accounts, including all messages sent and received by your students and how they are progressing through each activity. 
    • Read our privacy, safety and security policies

How to sign up and get started

  1. Decide when and how you’ll be participating in the program. Read our Information for Educators Guide or contact us for a free consultation. 
  2. Complete our registration form
  3. We will review your registration form and one of our team members will contact you to confirm your details. 
  4. When you are ready to get started, provide a list of your students’ names and emails, and we will email each student a welcome email.  

*The welcome email contains a link to a short course that introduces students to the program and what they can expect to get out of it. At the end of the course, the students will be asked to fill out their matching profile. They can also take an optional survey.   

  1. Allow up to 1 week for the eMentoring staff to match the students to their mentors. Once the students are matched, they can begin the program, starting with a built-in program tutorial.  

Parental Consent: Please ensure parents understand and consent to the items described in our consent form (you may download this form and share this form as needed).

Virtual mentor visits

Book one of our post-secondary student mentors to speak to your students. Our mentors are eager to share their advice and experiences with navigating high school, applying for post-secondary, college and university life, and can talk about their desired careers. This opportunity is perfect for classes, assemblies, clubs, and afterschool or lunchtime groups.  

To book a visit: 

  1. Contact us at e.mentoring@ubc.ca with your preferred date and time. We will share the opportunity with our mentor pool and provide you with a short bio of each mentor who is available at that time. 
  2. Choose the mentor(s) you wish to invite, the virtual platform you wish to use, and the format of the visit (presentation, Q&A style, panel-style with multiple mentors, small group chats, or anything else). 
  3. We will share your preferences with the mentor(s) and that’s that! 

Please allow at least two weeks to arrange the visit.

Pathways to healthcare careers presentations

Book a presentation from a health professions student about pathways to healthcare careers. These fun, interactive presentations highlight different pathways and opportunities for rural students and the joys of rural healthcare. We currently offer presentations for medicine and pharmacy careers, and are hoping to expand to other fields. 

This opportunity was created through a partnership between Rural eMentoring BC and UBC’s Faculties of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences with the goal of increasing rural student representation in their programs. 

Contact us at e.mentoring@ubc.ca to book an in-person or virtual presentation.