Mentoring Network

The AWFP Mentoring Program

One of the most popular benefits of membership, this program is designed to support women new to funeral service. Whether you’re in the academic phase of your career, the apprenticeship phase; studying for your licensing exams, or a newly licensed professional working in a funeral home – our mentoring program can help ease your path.

What is a Mentor?

Reaching back into Greek mythology, Mentor is the name of the person to whom Odysseus (Ulysses) entrusted the care of his son, Telemachus, when he set out on those famous wanderings of his that we now call an “odyssey.” Mentor was also Odysseus’ wise and trusted counselor, in addition to being tutor to Telemachus. Mentor’s name — with a lower-case “m” — has passed into our language as a shorthand term for wise and trusted counselor and teacher.

Mentoring

Our mentoring program is a tool we use to nurture our members, and grow in individual and collective strength. Protégés observe, question, and explore. Mentors demonstrate, explain and model. The following assumptions form the foundation for a solid mentoring program:

• Deliberate learning is the cornerstone. The mentor’s job is to promote intentional learning, which includes capacity building through methods such as instructing, coaching, providing experiences, modeling and advising.
• Both failure and success are powerful teachers. Mentors, as leaders of a learning experience, certainly need to share their “how to do it so it comes out right” stories. They also need to share their experiences of failure, i.e., “how I did it wrong”. Both types of stories are powerful lessons that provide valuable opportunities for analyzing individual and organizational realities.
• Leaders need to tell their stories. Personal scenarios, anecdotes and case examples, because they offer valuable, often unforgettable insight, must be shared. Mentors who can talk about themselves and their experiences establish a rapport that makes them “learning leaders.”
• Development matures over time. Mentoring — when it works — taps into continuous learning that is not an event, or even a string of discrete events. Rather, it is the synthesis of ongoing event, experiences, observation, studies, and thoughtful analyses.
• Mentoring is a joint venture. Successful mentoring means sharing responsibility for learning. Regardless of the facilities, the subject matter, the timing, and all other variables. Successful mentoring begins with setting a contract for learning around which the mentor, the protégé, are aligned.

An AWFP Protégé needs to:

• Be committed to expanding their capabilities
• Be open and receptive to new ways of learning and trying new ideas
• Be willing to accept feedback and act upon it

An AWFP Mentor needs to:

• Desire to mentor another and is committed to the protégés growth and development
• Have the job content knowledge necessary to effectively teach a new employee significant job knowledge
• Be willing to communicate failures as well as successes to the mentored employee
• Be able to spend an appropriate amount of time with the mentored employee