Key Mentoring

ACHIEVING MENTAL WELLNESS THROUGH MENTORING

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Therapeutic Mentoring

Our mentors are highly skilled, trained, and passionate about the work they do. They are relatable and have gone through many of the same experiences or struggles of our clients. As a result, they are able to create a unique and strong rapport with their clients.

The Eagle Program

We have mentors who have specialized training and background working with clients on the spectrum. They understand the client’s unique challenges and are able to effectively foster a connection. Our ASD mentors have the proper experience and training to implement action plans in helping the client reach their goals.

Parent Coaching

In order to experience long-term change, it’s important to treat the whole family system. Parents need their own support to help them implement new parenting techniques, uphold and maintain boundaries, and learn new ways of communication. Our licensed clinicians are experts when it comes to treating the family system.

24/7 Companioning

We offer 24/7 support anywhere at any time. Our companions provide specialized care to clients who need to be monitored and therapeutically supported to ensure their safety and/or maintain abstinence. Our companions can travel with a client anywhere, help a client get into a treatment program, and provide custom-tailored solutions to meet the client’s needs.

What is Key Mentoring?

Key Mentoring is a program that provides hands-on therapeutic support for clients who may be struggling with their mental health, substance use, and failure to launch. Our mentors use evidence-based modalities and techniques with our clients. During the first few sessions, the mentor observes the clients strengths and weaknesses and then builds an effective action plan to best serve them. Key Mentoring also provides tailored services and support to the needs of adolescents and young adults with autism and autism spectrum disorders. Mentoring involves one-on-one sessions with our therapeutic mentors out in the community doing therapeutic mentoring activities that help our clients learn to improve their mental health and overall well-being. Mentoring is designed to assist clients in integrating the tools they’ve learned in therapy or treatment into their real lives daily. Our mentors collaborate with each client’s therapist and act as an additional action arm to therapy. By helping clients get out of the house, develop meaningful connections with someone they can relate to, have lived a similar experience, and find healthy outlets for them to engage in.

Who We Help?

We at Key Mentoring work with all genders, typically from the ages of 13-30, but can help older or younger clients as well if we determine our mentoring program would effectively improve their lives. We support clients who struggle with mental health, substance abuse, and/or failure to launch issues, executive functioning skills often with co-occurring or dual diagnoses. We help a wide range of clients in unique circumstances, from the freshman in high school who is struggling to manage their anxiety and school work when therapy is not enough to support, to the young adult client who just completed treatment and needs support transitioning home, remaining sober and launching into an autonomous, fulfilling life.

Clients Who Struggle With

Mental health issues

Drug Addiction / Abuse

Failure to launch, in need of life skills

Needing direction or a role model

Isolation and gaming as their only coping skill

Difficulties in school and keeping up with homework

Students with Depression

Lack of self-esteem & direction

Lack of community and connection

Transitioning back home from a therapeutic program

Family conflict/communication

Interpersonal skills

Self-regulation

Lack of personal identity

Interdependence skills

How We Help?

Mentors are therapeutically trained and matched with clients based on their personal experiences, communication style, and mutual interests to make sure that they can connect with and build rapport with clients easily. We speak to whoever refers a client, their parents, therapists, psychiatrists and/or teachers, and the clients themselves to determine how we can best support a client and who on our team would be the most appropriate fit. This is an individualized and intentional process. We then determine the most appropriate number of hours per week to best support clients based on their unique needs and schedule. Mentors and clients spend time together out in the community doing activities, from surfing or skating, to working out, to hiking, to yoga/meditation, to building resumes and practicing interviewing for jobs, to learning how to grocery shop and cook; we tailor the activities based on whatever the client’s goals are. Mentors meet with clients a minimum of twice per week, often with one session being physical activity and one designed to help develop life skills or practice integrating therapeutic skills into the client’s daily lives.

Mentorship Examples Include

Supporting a client practicing DBT skills and grounding techniques while at a crowded flea market.
Helping a client go grocery shopping based on a predetermined budget and teaching the client how to cook healthy and affordable meals.
Taking a client to AA meetings and fellow shipping after the meeting by going to grab dinner.
Teaching a client how to surf.
Helping the client build out a balanced schedule so that their free time is spent productively.
Helping the client manage their stress around getting schoolwork done on time

Helping a client implement structure into their daily life
Helping a client with intrinsic motivation
Create short-term and long-term goals
Helping a client navigate the day to day obstacles and triggers
Providing a client with effective emotional regulation coping skills
Taking a client out into the community and assisting them in finding passions/interests
Encouraging a client to implement self-care into their daily routine

Parent Coaching

Parent coaching is designed to support parents by giving them access to their own clinician who will support them as their son or daughter works with a mentor. Parents work with a coach for an hour per week to develop effective communication skills, learn how to set and hold boundaries, implement natural consequences, and develop tools to understand their children. Each teen and young adult has a unique set of issues and collaborates with the child’s mentor by working with a clinician. Parent coaching will help parents connect with their children and understand their son or daughter’s depression and their unique set of issues in a way most parents do not.

Often, issues a client faces stem from the family system, and thus all system elements must grow together for lasting change to occur. If a client is working with a mentor to grow and make changes, the parents similarly can benefit from working with a coach to support their child’s growth and development. Otherwise, old parental patterns and behaviors may undo the changes a child is trying to implement. Our team of parent coaches will work with the client’s mentor to make sure that the parents can support and understand their children in a way most parents do not, which will allow children to feel more comfortable opening up to and confiding in their parents.