Leaders Helping Leaders provides a guide to planning and implementing a structured mentoring programme to support educational leaders on a local basis. John Daresh presents a three-phase model which leads the reader through initial planning, implementation, and evaluation issues. He discusses: the definitions and purposes of mentoring; benefits derived from mentoring; the kinds of training programmes available to assist school system planners in the design of local mentor preparation programs; Chapters are filled with suggested issues and activities that will assist readers in developing effective programmes at the local level. The book concludes with detailed prompts to sketch a mentoring plan for one's district - a mentor-protege action planning form. The first edition of Leaders Helping Leaders was published by Scholastic in 1992.
John C. Daresh is professor of educational leadership at the University of Texas at El Paso. Over the years, he has held faculty or administrative appointments at the University of Cincinnati, The Ohio State University, the University of Northern Colorado, and Illinois State University. He has also worked as a consultant on high school reform and administrator professional development for universities, state departments of education, national and state professional associations, and individual schools and districts across the United States, and also in Barbados, Canada, France, Holland, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, and Taiwan. By far, the bulk of Daresh's international service has been in the United Kingdom where he served an advisor and trainer for the School Management Task Force that developed and promoted support programs for beginning headteachers, the National College for School Leadership, the Welsh Office of Education, the North West Network for Diploma Development in Cheshire, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Lincoln, the University of Hull, CREATE Consultancies, and literally dozens of Local Education Authorities and individual schools across England and Wales. Daresh recently completed three years of service as the lead consultant on principal mentoring programs for the Chicago Public Schools as that megadistrict was faced with the challenge of bringing in mostly inexperienced principals to serve in nearly of the school system's elementary and high schools.
Introduction PART ONE: PLANNING THE MENTORING PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL LEADERS What Is Mentoring? And Why Is It so Important? Initial Program Development What Is Our Purpose? PART TWO: IMPLEMENTING YOUR PROGRAM Who Is a Mentor? Preparing People to Serve as Mentors The Match Game Now That You're a Mentor, What Do You Do? Mentoring for Beginning Leaders Mentoring for Veterans PART THREE: ASSESSING YOUR PROGRAM How Do We Know if It Worked? What Is Next?
"This is truly a how-to book for designing and implementing a mentoring program. Daresh pulls the reader in with a relaxed style and logical structure. The reader finds practical info about the possible pitfalls of starting a mentoring program and how to deal with them. I highly recommend this book." -- Frank Buck, Principal
