Hi Emily, thank you for your question! While the mentors work primarily with the girls, we formed an active Caring Adult Network (CAN) made up of parents of the girls and interested community members/program providers who gather at least monthly for workshops, social events, and more! This group has always been incredible, but especially in the last school year they have taken even more ownership of the group, planning their own adult social activities as well as family events and field trips. They are really dedicated to creating community for themselves and their children, and we are so thankful to get to support them and connect with them. One element that made this possible was a community relations engagement manager who was on our team who helped bring CAN together and empower them to take on leadership roles in the group. It's amazing to see!

Thank you, Roxana! Our work takes an ecosystem approach, and we are currently looking at a range of data such as interviews, surveys, log data from our learning platform, and reflections to understand the role of this program in the local landscape and the ways the program has impacted community, learning, participation, and more. This work with mentors has also helped inspire an even larger STEAM mentorship development program (STEAMbassadors Initiative) where we are able to track learning pathways mentors take toward their desired futures. Last, a member of the research team is working on her dissertation around mentor learning and specifically this context of women mentors working with middle school girls - be on the lookout for more on that soon!

Can't wait! Thank you, Naomi!

Thank you, Neela!

Hi Fran! A bit of both! We draw on existing curricula created by program partners and past mentors, and sometimes mentors have opportunities to make their own units and projects, or adapt the existing curricula! It's a really nice balance to give mentors with different experience levels opportunities to facilitate in different ways!
Your program sounds so impactful! Having mentors from the community has been such an amazing element for us. Some of our mentors are high school students as well, and they are such great role models for the younger girls who can ask questions about high school classes, activities, etc.

Hi Catherine! We have understood our Divas ecosystem as including youth programming, mentors, our Caring Adult Network (CAN - parents and community members dedicated to bettering the out-of-school opportunities for their youth), and what we call the Collective, which is all the other local program providers such as libraries, after school clubs, etc. While we want girls to participate in our programs we also want them to know about and try out the range of opportunities out there! We try to act as brokers for girls and their families in navigating the landscape.

Hi Jan! We have been really excited by the participation in our Caring Adult Network (CAN - parents and community members). This year we've seen increased participation as well as some parents taking on more leadership roles within the network! They are taking it upon themselves to organize social events for adults so they can form more intentional community, as well as to organize family outings and events to include siblings and help showcase learning as a lifestyle. We just concluded some interviews with parents that will help us better understand the impact, and we collect survey data at the beginning and end of every program year as well. We're just diving into some of that data now, and look forward to sharing more soon!

In working with kids groups (tutoring programs, Girl Scouts, etc.) and being a parent myself, I've found that lots of parents just don't have time to consistently volunteer. Some do, of course, and that's terrific but it would be interesting to look at the parents who do show up in your ecosystem to see what motivates and sustains their participation. 

Great work!

Thanks! Yes - we interviewed parents across the participation spectrum and are looking forward to learning how to better support parents at all levels!

Thank you, Ann! It's been a great experience and we are looking forward to sharing even more in the future.

Hi Eyualem! We recruit in a number of ways, schools, emails, word of mouth, local community organizations! In our area, families really do try to take advantage of all the opportunities out there, so we were careful to talk primarily to our target communities. It helped that we had someone on the team whose job was specifically community engagement and outreach. We're always trying to learn and get better!

Hi Mia, great questions! The mentors are undergraduate students and two are currently local high school students. The mentors are paid as hourly employees. They receive specific training around why it is important to nurture girls of color in STEM and strategies for facilitating STEAM activities. The majority have also worked as mentors in a larger summer program -- STEAMbassadors -- where they have also received training in trauma-informed youth work and more. We have not used the specific piece you are referencing, but will certainly be looking into that - thank you for sharing! 

Hi Jan, yes! The mentors are paid hourly. Some have other part-time jobs as well and some do not. They each have the flexibility to balance their own schedules and needs (perhaps working less during mid-term week, for example). Those who are seeking more hours may ask to take on additional responsibilities, such as leading more activity units, while those with stricter schedules may support the youth and other mentors in other ways. Especially as the undergraduate mentors near their graduation, we try to check-in individually about their next step plans and help make connections where we can. The program is about their development as well as the middle-schoolers'!

Hi Jamelle! You are so right, high school and college students have so many demands on their time. Our recruiting in recent years has been mostly through recommendations, word of mouth, and participation in relevant groups like Black Engineers. For the summer programs, we also work closely with a local community college and their recruitment channels. For the Divas program specifically, we ask that mentors commit to participating through the academic year (~Oct - May), but of course we understand that a lot can change over the course of an academic year. Compensating the mentors for their time certainly helps with retention. And we love to ask mentors back year after year if they are interested! It offers incredible opportunities to see them grow over time.