Actions speak louder than words: An exploration of the role of shared activities in mentoring

The paper explores the experience of mentoring for a group of 18 disadvantaged young people taking part in the PromiseWorks mentoring programme in the Southwest of the UK. It builds on previous studies which showed that the young people in the scheme found mentoring to be valuable in building a positive relationship of trust, mutual understanding and safety. Also, the young people had stated that ‘actions speak louder than words’, namely, that engaging in mutually rewarding shared activities was an important way that this sense of trust had developed. This study aimed to explore this finding further through shared interviews with 18 pairs of mentors and mentees examining the nature of the activities they had engaged in, participants’ views and how this had contributed to the development of their relationship. The findings indicated that they had engaged in a very wide range of shared activities and that these were experienced as having a variety of benefits. They were seen as a source of mutual pleasure, relief from the troubled lives of the young people, helping to gain a state of calmness and fostering abilities to think. The activities were also seen as important in distinguishing the mentoring relationship from relationships with professionals, such as with teachers, counsellors and social workers. An important overall finding was that shared activities could generate a sense of calm for the young people which could make it more possible for them to express and reflect on their circumstances. Talking and reflection emerging spontaneously rather than being felt as an expectation, as in counselling was seen as helpful.