Create general guidance for participants
What guidance do all of your participants need?
The prospective participants in your programme will need to know:
- what your programme is and how it works
- what they would be expected to do as part of the programme
- how they can register to participate
You could include information like this in a general guidance document. You could signpost to this guidance when you are ready to publicise your programme.
What you could include
Why your programme has been created
You should consider explaining why your programme has been created in your guidance and wider communications materials.
Engaging in mentoring programmes can be a significant commitment for the participants; both mentors and mentees. Explaining why your programme has been created, and what you hope to achieve because of it, can help to persuade participants to get involved.
How your programme works
You should explain how your programme will work in practice. Explain the whole programme in a step-by-step process. For each step, explain what your participants will experience at that point and what they will have to do.
Who is eligible
You should explicitly state who is eligible to register for the programme. This will reduce the number of accidental sign-ups for the programme, and reduce your administrative work.
How to register
You should include links to your registration forms in your guidance. The easier to you can make it for participants to register, the more likely they are to sign-up.
Links to further information
You could include links to wider guidance documents or resources in your general guidance document. For example, you could include a link to guidance that is specific to mentors or mentees, or to your code of conduct.
Example
About the mentoring programme
This document contains an example of the general guidance you could provide to participants. You can freely re-use and adapt this guidance document to suit your needs.
Keep it simple
Keep your guidance as straight-forward and simple as you can. Write the guidance in Plain English. Simple guidance will result in the fewer questions from participants and prospective participants.
You can use tools like the Hemingway App to help you to write in short, easy to understand sentences.