Mentor Waco Coalition Offering Training for Current and Prospective Community Mentors
Press release
Mentor Waco Coalition, a Prosper Waco working group, has worked diligently to pair the young minds of Waco with community leaders who want to see them succeed. The coalition promotes awareness for current mentoring opportunities in Waco and brings leaders together to educate future mentors.
On October 26, 2019 at 9:00 to 11:30 a.m., the Mentor Waco Coalition will continue to advance that goal with a morning of training for any current or potential mentors in the Waco community who would like to learn more about the difficulties Waco students face and how to help them overcome those struggles. The training will be held at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church, and there is no cost to attend. Pastries and coffee will be provided.
Brittany Fitz, director of Research and Evaluation at Prosper Waco, has attended multiple training sessions and said she believes in the value of these opportunities. “What’s really great about the Mentor Coalition meetings in general is it brings together people that are doing similar work to really make sure that they are common in the best practices,” Fitz said. “So, the upcoming training they have is to address the need that they saw across all organizations.”
With this upcoming mentor training opportunity, Waco leaders from different organizations will discuss their own efforts and the nuances and lessons from their experiences. Training participants will get to hear from professionals who understand the ins and outs of helping the Waco community and ask questions to further their own understanding of the topics offered. Session one choices include: “Behavior/Redirection” led by GL Wiley Elementary Principal Craig Cox, GL Wiley Middle School Assistant Principal Melody Herring, and founder and executive director of the organization Size of a Man Darryl Thomas; or “Bullying/Self Esteem” led by STARRY Team Supervisor Leah Gorham. Session two choices include: “Social Media Tips/Awareness” led by Dr. Soo Battle, a pediatrician and founder of Camp Careful, and Chelsa Ressetar, the director of advancement at Vanguard and a speaker on digital citizenship; or “Human/Sex Trafficking” led by a representative from Unbound.
“I think one of the biggest draws for these presentations is the fact that we not only have great experts in each of the discussion areas, but we are intentionally keeping a large portion of each session dedicated to Q&A,” said the Mentor Waco Coalition Chair, Travis Cheatham. “Any attendee has the ability to connect with and ask direct questions of the presenters. I think all four of these sessions are areas that anyone, including the heads of mentoring organizations, could gain additional insight and experience from.”
This working group embodies Prosper Waco’s core value of collective impact, and with this training, more connections can be made to create a stronger Waco. To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mentor-waco-training-conference-tickets-70686642651. Columbus Avenue Baptist Church is located at 1300 Columbus Avenue, Waco, TX 76701. For further information, please contact Travis Cheatham at [email protected].
