MMP Goes to DC!
In the final week of cold, cloudy January, a large number of the MMP team boarded planes at Logan, Providence, and Manchester airports to make the quick trip down to DC to attend the National Mentoring Summit! This annual event, hosted by MENTOR National, is a three-day event that takes place in the heart of the Capitol- inviting MENTOR affiliates, mentoring programs, and donors from across the country and around the world to meet together in one space, united under the shared goal of driving positive change for young people. Attendees have the opportunity to learn from one another, form new connections, and explore best practices for strengthening and expanding the youth mentoring movement.
This year, MMP showed up in style and in force- with ten (yes, TEN!) of our team members attending,to support and also to learn and lead with the national and affiliate network.
From MMP- Beth Fraster, Vice President & Chief Program Officer (celebrating her 10th National Mentoring Summit!), and Rosie McMahan, Manager of Training & Special Projects, and Lauren McCabe, Manager of Training and Capacity Building and Natalie Spriggs, Manager of Community Engagement Eastern MA, joined forces and as dynamic duos presented workshops on topics that are of significant interest in the field.
Both Beth & Rosie, and Lauren & Natalie, worked together in presenting, seasoned pros at this stage in talking about the following topics:
For Beth & Rosie: “More than Broken”: Moving from Trauma-Informed Care to a Healing-Centered Approach
And for Lauren & Natalie: Social & Emotional Learning is All Around Us: How to See SEL in All You Do
Both workshops maxed out the meeting rooms’ capacities, and those who attended were engaged and participated in discussions and exercises that helped to drive the key points of each workshop.
(Curious about what those key points were? Well, stay tuned to future blog posts, where we will dive deeper and share more!)
MMP also had representation at the Capitol for Capitol Hill Day, the day before workshops began. Nate Simms, Director of Government Relations and Public Policy, joined other Government Relations and Advocacy representatives from our fellow Affiliates, as well as members of mentoring programs from different regions, to attend an in-person training, meeting and networking event. This year, advocates heard from young people, elected leaders and a panel of Congressional staff about the impact they can have.
A few highlights from the Summit:
During the Affiliate-hosted lunch on Thursday, MMP had the opportunity to sit with some attendees of the Summit, who are our program partners here in Massachusetts! Representatives from Silver Lining Mentoring, LUK Inc, Science Club for Girls, BUILD.org, and Boston Public Schools joined us, and everyone had the opportunity to introduce themselves, their organization, and what they are working on in their respective spaces. It was fun to make new connections, and reignite some former ones! At the end of it, we were all feeling energized and ready to tackle not only the second half of the day’s schedule but the work ahead of us here in the Commonwealth.
The afternoon Plenary on Thursday provided an opportunity to learn more about the initiative Mentoring Black and brown girls. This was especially interesting & energizing for MMP, as we have been invited to be among the first of the Affiliates to introduce this work to our region! The moving presentation can be viewed on the MENTOR National Mentoring Summit Recap page. MMP’s Janeen Smith-Carnes, Director of Training & Capacity Building, will be traveling to Florida at the beginning of March to attend the FIRST Mentoring Black and brown Girls summit, Girls of Color THRIVE, hosted by MENTOR and will bring what she learns back to the team here in MA!
It was a jam-packed few days in the Capitol, fueled for many of us by AMPLE amounts of coffee. If you ask any of us, though, if the trip was worth it, you would receive a resounding “YES, absolutely!” from all. For those who attended for the first time, it was an eye-opening experience into how many people there truly are in this movement, dedicated to supporting youth through mentoring; for those that have been to more than one (or, say, 10- like Beth!) this year was full of new conversations, new connections, and fresh ideas and perspectives to take back to their work.
For more coverage on the full list of Summit workshops, plus video coverage of the week’s plenaries, check out the MENTOR National Summit webpage, https://www.mentoring.org/national-mentoring-summit/, and keep an eye HERE and on our Bulletin for more updates from MMP.