ConnectEd is a unique provider of mentoring and coaching for school staff. Given our team’s background in health, education and business, we have developed a mentoring program that supports staff to reflect on and improve their work. Since launching this service in late 2022, we have already begun supporting a number of schools.

Who is this for?

Within the health sector, mentoring is common practice. It helps with supporting the professional and personal growth of the individual, provides a sounding board for talking through challenges and changes, and offers an essential external opinion when thinking about how to approach your role. However, this kind of service is not so common in other disciplines, including education. The types of people who might benefit from mentoring include:

Schools

• Senior leaders

• Pastoral care leaders (e.g. Year Level Coordinators, House Leaders)

• Counselling, guidance and ministry team

What is mentoring and coaching?

Mentoring and coaching differ from the traditional notion of mentoring and coaching in schools and businesses, which often involves a manager or senior staff member providing support, direction, or evaluations. Instead, we aim to provide a structure that helps you identify areas of your work, and opportunities to improve these. Please note, this is not therapy, nor is it a health service, and it is not intended to replace specific support for you. Where issues relating to your wellbeing are the primary concern, we will support you to connect with someone else who can more specifically support you with this.

Mentoring goes beyond discussing past events and actions taken and focuses on identifying the next steps and proactive solutions. We seek to find a balance between working on understanding what has happened, while also focussing on proactive steps we can take to address these concerns. This may include identifying systems, processes or approaches that could be a target of change or action. 

Examples for school staff:

• Pastoral care – discussion of students-of-concern, reviewing/modifying pastoral care processes

• Support of staff – developing approaches for supporting staff

How does it work?

We can develop a process specific to you/your organisation’s needs. Some examples of how we are currently providing this:

• Group mentoring (1.5hr) – 2-10 participants in similar roles, shared discussions and problem-solving

• Individual mentoring (1hr) – one-on-one meeting between mentor and participant

• A combination of both – 1 group mentoring session every 3 months for the year + 1 individual mentoring session (per person) every 3 months for the year

How much does it cost

• For group mentoring (2-10 participants) – $360/hr (+GST) 

• For individual mentoring (one-on-one) – $260/hr (+GST)

• We can also provide these services as a ‘package’ as this can help with budgeting. For example, a school might ask for 5 individual mentoring sessions + 1 group mentoring session per term for the 4 terms. We can provide this as a combined invoice

This is not therapy, nor a health service, and it is not intended to replace specific support for your mental health and wellbeing