Can you pickle, preserve, plant or parent? If you answer “yes” and you have some free time, you may be a Sages mentor in the making.
Sages is a community-based mentoring programme that recruits and trains older people as mentors and then matches them with families and individuals who could benefit from the mentor’s experiences and knowledge.
Presbyterian Support Family Works in Rangiora is the only Presbyterian Support office in New Zealand running one of the 17 nationwide Sages programmes, says Diane Sharp, who is Sages’ Rangiora coordinator. Diane is about to re-launch Sages in North Canterbury and she is looking to churches and community groups for more volunteer mentors.
Sages currently has six trained mentors, one of whom is from the congregation at John Knox Presbyterian Church, Rangiora. Mentors range in age from 50s to 70s and Diane says she would describe all as discreet, open-minded people who realise that they are not there to change people but to walk alongside them.
Diane says that she will soon be talking to churches and community groups throughout North Canterbury about what Sages has to offer volunteer mentors in terms of community outreach. “It’s not about hard work, it’s about older people sharing some of the interests and skills they have - that can be fun.”
An example of the kinds of mentoring people could be involved in include showing families that participate in community gardens how to preserve their surplus fruit and vegetables; few younger people today know preserving skills and would benefit from learning how to bottle fruit, and make jams and pickles. Diane says the same applies to baking; people buy expensive biscuits because they do not know how to bake and freeze. Handicraft is another skill that mentors could teach; many older people make toys, beautiful baby clothes, and knit jumpers, all skills that younger people and young families would benefit from learning. Diane says that not many younger people know how to darn clothes so they buy new, getting into debt, instead of repairing.
Once a person applies to be a mentor Diane says they receive training in a number of areas including setting boundaries, values, listening skills, communication, awareness raising, confidentiality and grief and loss.
“Both the training and I are there to support our mentors. If they have a concern or a worry, they shouldn’t have to carry it; they can tell me and I will follow it up.” A social worker with 18 years’ experience working for Child Youth and Family, Diane says there is not much she hasn’t seen or dealt with but that the “big stuff” is not something the mentors need to concern themselves with.
“I will not match mentors with families that are more in need of counselling services than, say, budgeting help. If we did that, we would be setting our mentors up to fail and what we want is for our mentors to get satisfaction from the assistance they give.”
Diane says she is thinking creatively about how to best use the skills of the mentors. “We won’t have mentors working only with families; community groups have come to us wanting mentoring, such as a young mothers’ group that wanted to talk with older mothers.”
Mentors can choose to specialise in their skills area, Diane says. “For example, we have a mentor who is an ex-accountant working with a family over the next three months showing them how to prepare and stick with a budget. They are also showing the family how to buy in-season, cheap but nutritious food, and how to cook it”.
What Sages looks for in potential mentors, Diane says, is life experience, a sense of humour and an interest in people and families. Mentors do not need to have academic qualifications, they just need to have something to offer “and most older people I talk with do not realise how much they can offer their community”. “Sometimes I need to convince people that they have skills! Older people do or have done hobbies; they have skills from their working life; they have wisdom from life experiences that could be utilised.”
New mentors are encouraged to make a one-year commitment to the Sages programme, Diane says, so they have a good period of time to make a difference. “We do not want mentors to take on a family long term and create dependency; we want mentors to use their skills where they are needed and then move on so that more and more of the community are enriched.”
By Angela Singer