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Mentoring : Glass Forward

Grow Our Own… progressive career mentoring from the Housing Diversity Network and The Connectives

Having a mentor can be one of the most powerful developmental relationships a person will ever experience. Mentoring taps into a basic instinct most people share – the desire to pass on their learning, to help other people develop and fulfil their potential.

Glass Forward is an innovative mentoring programme for senior staff within the housing sector. The motivation to develop the Glass Forward programme originated from The Airport Group, a group of LSVT organisations in the North West, who collectively voiced their frustration at the limited progress of existing schemes aimed at enabling under represented staff to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ that exists for most senior jobs. We believed in creating this initiative that we needed to reach further and deeper and act in collaboration, to really address the gaps we see in having a strong and diverse leadership talent pool in the sector.

The Glass Forward mentoring initiative aims:

To complement other leadership programmes already out there;
To address the needs of individuals from under-represented groups;
To provide a concentrated focus on analysing what the mentee needs by using our bespoke matching process.

The programme comprises diagnostics for the matching process and a one to one coaching feedback session, three mentoring sessions, three Masterclasses, three Action Learning Sets and participation in end of programme conference.

Conclusions of the Independent evaluation by Doctor Anya Ahmed Salford University:

the Glass Forward Mentoring Programme is a more sophisticated and tailored programme than existing leadership/ mentoring programmes in the housing sector due to the diagnostic tools adopted by the Connectives
the quality of the Masterclasses and the experience of the facilitators on the programme adds value to this process
the high calibre of the mentors provides mentees with the benefits of their extensive professional experience, networks and contacts
the commitment of the mentors adds further value
the ethos of the programme captures and reflects the important work undertaken by the Housing Diversity Network
the Glass Forward Mentoring Programme is about the long term growth of participants
in cost terms, it compares very favourably with existing leadership programmes

Glass Forward was recently covered in an Inside Housing Article on career progression in social housing. Please see our BLOG for the full article.
If you need any further information on Glass forward please contact hannah@housingdiversitynetwork.co.uk.