Ongoing Guide Training: Mentoring is a Practice

We’re excited to announce the latest update to our Guide Training process. This year, we are initiating Ongoing Guide Training (OGT). This program not only allows our Guides to continue developing their mentoring skills, it also creates opportunities for Guides to connect with each other and further strengthen this Sisterhood of incredible women.

If you read our recent blog post, you know we’ve created a Program Committee of Guide Sisters and a board liaison to help develop new program opportunities. The Program Committee has taken the lead in developing Ongoing Guide Training. Before developing the program, they first addressed the question, “Why should Firefly Sisterhood consider Ongoing Guide Training?” They came to agreement on four important reasons:

1. We believe mentoring is a practice. It’s important to continue learning and developing mentoring skills.
2. Having well-trained Guides is a core value of Firefly Sisterhood.
3. Guide Training is one of the primary reasons the medical community trusts Firefly Sisterhood.
4. It is important to build connections and community within Firefly Sisterhood – both for Guides and for our recently diagnosed Sisters.

With these guiding principles in place, we followed the lead of the Program Committee to develop Ongoing Guide Training. This program will be in a pilot phase for 2017. We’ll use the “Build, Listen & Learn” model that drives our organizational growth and development, and we’ll rely heavily on feedback from our Guides about what is and what isn’t working with this new program. We’ll gather feedback throughout the year, and the program is subject to change as needed based on those insights.

We are developing a full calendar of training topics and opportunities but wanted first to share a few additional details of the program:

1. Participation in Ongoing Guide Training will be mandatory in order to remain an active Firefly Sisterhood Guide.
2. Guides will be required to attend two OGT sessions during the 2017 calendar year.
3. Firefly Sisterhood and the Program Committee will create and share with our Guides a calendar of events that count toward the OGT requirement. We are committed to offering a variety of topics and occasions and hosting them at various locations around the metro.

In less than three years, we’ve trained over 150 women to be Firefly Sisterhood Guides! We’re grateful to have reached the point where there is interest in and the need for this type of continuing education. The feedback we’ve received from our Guides thus far is overwhelmingly positive. We look forward to additional opportunities to work together to further strengthen our Guides’ skills and connections.