With the start of the new academic year, the Scadding Court Mentorship Program (SCMP) is recruiting volunteer mentors to join our team! The SCMP is a community affairs program supported by the Faculty of Medicine.
What exactly is the SCMP?
The SCMP pairs up children (aged 6-12) with 2 volunteer mentors from U of T’s Faculty of Medicine based on common interests. The program promotes fostering positive relationships with children in a high-risk neighbourhood through a variety of fun activities. The focus of this program is to foster development of leadership, self-esteem, compassion, and overall social skills through interactions with the mentors, while providing kids with the unique opportunity to participate in interesting and diverse activities which they may otherwise not have access to. We hold sessions weekly where mentors get to hang out with their mentee, followed by group activities such as introduction to coding workshops, field trips to skate at Nathan Phillips Square, or instructional magic shows!
When/where is it?
The program runs on Saturdays from November to April (excluding holidays and March Break) and will be held at the Scadding Court Community Centre (Dundas & Bathurst). Sessions will usually be from 12:00-2:00pm, and as mentioned above, time will be split between hanging out 1-on-1 with your mentee, and interactive group activities that change weekly. The co-directors plan and facilitate the activities each week, so mentors are only expected to show up and participate with their mentee, with no preparation required ahead of time. We know how busy graduate, medical, dental, and pharmacy students’ schedules are, so 2 mentors are assigned to each mentee, meaning mentors only need to attend bi-weekly. Mentors are connected with their co-mentor once paired with a mentee, and are free to schedule who will attend which sessions based on their availability. We will also have some slightly longer field trips that extend past 12:00-2:00pm, but these are usually just 30 minutes longer to allow us time to commute to the activity, and you will be notified of them well in advance. The SCMP is a popular program among the children (they really look forward to it!) so we ask that those who sign up are committed to attending their scheduled sessions on alternating Saturdays.
Scadding Court Community Centre:
How do you sign up?
If you are interested in being a mentor, we will be hosting an information session over Zoom on Wednesday, October 8, 2024 from 7-8 PM to provide further details about the program and answer any questions. The meeting will be accessible through this link: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/89635505795 (Meeting ID: 896 3550 5795- no password required)
If this program interests you and you are already able to fully commit to being a mentor for the 2025/2026 academic year, please register by filling out the following Google form: https://forms.gle/yYHf5toY5Nzx2vK69. Our program starts on November 1, 2025, and we ask that any interested applicants register through the Google form by October 17th so we can begin pairing up co-mentors with a mentee. If you wish to volunteer with us, you will also require a Vulnerable Sector Screening (VSS). Good news – the community centre covers the cost of the VSS! The instructions are provided in the application.
If you have any questions, feel free to email us at sccc.mentorship@gmail.com. We look forward to this year’s exciting program with you!