Outline
The UCD Peer Mentoring Programme was first piloted in 2006 and has grown since then. There are three main areas of work involved in the mentoring programme which are recruitment, training and matching the mentors with mentees.
The main purpose of the mentors is to help with the transition to university, it is about supporting incoming students to make friends, become familiar with services & to provide hints and tips on being a student. UCD students are trained to work as peer mentors and using their own experiences and insights, they help to create an environment which is welcoming and which facilitates the social and academic development of all our new undergraduate students. As well as arranging meetings and social events for their mentees, mentors will also be available to assist with any queries or concerns which their mentees may have during their first semester.
In turn, mentors will be supported by their Peer Mentor Coordinator at each local programme level. UCD’s Peer Mentor population has grown to over 600 and is part of every undergraduate programme in the University.
Peer Mentors also gain new skills and the university as a whole benefits from an engaged and involved student body.
The overall aim of the UCD Peer Mentoring Programme is to:
- Help news students make friends and settle into their course
- Encourage new students to get involved in social activities
- Prepare new students for first year by encouraging them to develop specific study skills
- Reassure new students when it comes to concerns they may have about starting college
- Support new students in solving problems which at the start of Stage 1 can seem very difficult but which, with the right help, can be easily addressed
- Provide a space where new students can ask questions, no matter how big or small they may seem
- Assist new students in navigating the various academic and personal supports that are available to them in UCD
- Enhance the overall quality of the first year experience
- Equip Peer Mentors with organisational, communication and leadership skills
All peer mentors attend a comprehensive training before they undertake the role. Mentors undertake online training during the summer to learn about UCD support and other services and also in person training before the beginning of the academic year. This latter training is skills based around developing students’ active listening skills, understanding boundaries and confidentiality. It also covers the practical training around the role that mentors play during the orientation week and what their roles and responsibilities as well as the logistics of what is involved. Peer Mentors are recruited each year from around Feb to the end of March. It is a completely voluntary role.
In addition to this, they are supported by Peer Mentor Coordinators at local level during the duration of the programme. It’s important to remember that Peer Mentors are one layer of support within a wider network and that no Peer Mentor has to deal with a problem on their own.
The ratio of mentors to mentees is 1:8 – Mentors are matched based on their current programme of study for e.g. if a mentor is studying law they will be matched with incoming undergraduates who are in the same programme or a similar field of study. UCD uses bespoke software to co-ordinate the matching process of incoming students and mentors. On average, there are about 5,000 first year students to 650 mentors. There is some flexibility within the matching system for e.g. maybe grouping mature students on a programme together.
Contact with mentees begins in late August when new students begin to accept their UCD place and peer mentors will continue to offer support, advice and guidance to first year students. It is the mentors’ responsibility to arrange the meetings, schedule dates and times that suit everyone, this can be done online or in person. Mentors are supported by their local programme Peer Mentor Coordinator throughout this process.
There are also Peer Mentor Senior Leaders who had previously been peer mentors and were nominated to take up a more senior role, they can act as a support link for new peer mentors, assist with administration and manage social media for the peer mentoring programme. These are paid positions.
There are also many benefits to training and working as a peer mentor:
- Meeting new people and becoming more involved in UCD life
- Developing organisational and leadership skills
- Improving communication with others
- Increasing confidence
- Improves their CV and enhances their employability when their degree is finished
- Peer Mentor Training and Support
Length, timing
As noted there is a 1:8 ratio of mentors to mentees. The support role is in place from August to early January of the following year and mentors are encouraged to meet with their mentees 3 to 4 times during this period. Mentors connect with their mentees in groups.
Target group, group size
1st years in terms of mentee
2nd year and above in terms of mentors
Who organises it/what is involved?
A designated Coordinator has recently been put in place to oversee the Peer Mentoring Programme in UCD. At a programme level it is coordinated by the local Peer Mentor Coordinator. An oversight committee, the Peer Mentor Management Team which includes staff and student representatives is responsible for overall programme development and strategy.
Student Involvement
In order for the Peer Mentor Management Team to work effectively, it is crucial that it has student membership. Our student members bring fresh ideas and a unique perspective to the workings of the team.
Goals
To support incoming students to settle in, make friends and set them up for college life.
Inspiration and evidence
The peer mentoring programme is based on the Transition + Model from Liz Thomas’s – ‘What works? Facilitating an effective transition into higher education’
Success criteria
The student-to-student piece is the main success of the programme as they are getting meaningful advice and information from a peer who is a student just like them and has recently been through a similar experience.
Another success criteria of the programme is improved retention although this is hard to quantify as there are lots of different variables involved.
Improvements could be made to the quality of peer mentors. At one time we interviewed them at local level. The staffing to do this is no longer available. It is something we will be looking at this year. The skills training moved online during lockdown and Covid. There are elements that would benefit from more experiential learning – this will be reviewed this year to see if it is logistically possible to bring back in person training elements for the skills component. The practical component is done through person training.
The peer to peer support. That all incoming first year students are assigned to a peer mentor from the programme area in so far as is possible, the small group nature to give students a small set of friendly faces initially.
Points of attention
We have an intake of 5200 students across all of our programmes and around 650-700 peer mentors. Providing regular support within the current structure has proved difficult. Last year we had a team of 8 Peer Mentor Senior Leaders who were tasked with keeping in touch with the Peer Mentors and posting helpful tips via social media. Mentors could also direct queries to them. The Peer Mentor Coordinators at a local level don’t have the time for regular check-ins. From this year, a new coordinator is in place for this programme. One of the amendments we’ll be looking at is how to more effectively support the mentors.
Improvements could be made to the quality of peer mentors. At one time we interviewed them at local level. The staffing to do this is no longer available. It is something we will be looking at this year. The skills training moved online during lockdown and Covid. There are elements that would benefit from more experiential learning – this will be reviewed this year to see if it is logistically possible to bring back in person training elements for the skills component. The practical component is done through person training.
Effectiveness
Student feedback is really helpful to ascertain effectiveness – feedback from surveys indicate that the peer mentoring initiative is highly valued.
Evaluation
It was evaluated at the start of the second semester in 2022 and again in 2023. A survey was sent out to mentors and mentees. Overall, the feedback was that the peer mentoring was really beneficial and a valuable programme but it was identified that the support sought from mentors tends to slow down as the semester progresses, the engagement is very strong at the beginning and tends to wean off as the semester progresses and students settle into their programmes. Mentors and mentees were asked to provide their opinions on what works, what could be improved and make suggestions for improvements to the programme along with questions about the benefits of mentoring in relation to the aims of the programme. Data from these surveys is used to tailor the programme to meet the requirements identified in the surveys.
Communication
- Posters
- Social Media
- Student -ezine (newsletter)
- Direct emails to students
- Face to face – for e.g. announcement at a lecture.
Peer Mentor Senior Leaders are asked to do lecturer addresses. Make videos about peer mentoring to post on the website, social media.
What material can be used to learn more and to increase transferability?
Transferability
We think it is easily transferable to other contexts or groups.
Yes – the peer mentoring programme could be adapted to work in another institution
It would be important to put sufficient resources in place – staff, admin support and to consider data management as well.
As well as timing for recruitment, training & matching and planning for ongoing coordination.
There is lots of software that helps with matching mentors and mentees – so this could be something to look into but there is a cost involved. UCD developed their own software.
The project was not intentionally designed with these principles. It does comply with most principles of universal design.