Since starting my role at Evolve as a Health mentor there have many memories and moments that I could have picked for my biggest achievement. In April 2024 I started in my role as a Health Mentor in a Barking and Dagenham secondary school. Being in a new job role and educational setting I knew there were going to be challenges ahead to overcome.
However, after just a few weeks and meeting my new students, I knew my biggest achievement would be helping them. Each student was unique with their own problems to overcome at school. Some students started well with sessions feeling engaging and discussions starting from the off about goals to set for the future. This was not always the case though. Other students understandably were hesitant with me being their 3rd or 4th mentor in the space of a year. From training with Evolve to discussions with staff at school, my biggest takeaway about how to get over this obstacle is patience and resilience.
Other things such as my schedule, helping on school trips, breakfast club and after school football were falling into place. The one thing I felt left was seeing the progress from the students after our weekly 1 to 1 session. Some weeks this felt great, whereas others would be demotivating and feel like a backwards step. This led me to a discussion with my headteacher and his analogy stuck with me, ‘imagine you are throwing pebbles into a pond, this may feel like a small action but over time it ripples across the whole pond’. Every week would be a new pebble with each of my students and a chance to have a positive effect over time.
This along with Evolves core values of being passionate, resilient and authentic are what I fall back on in the tough moments. This has led to me to today with 2025 just beginning and feeling in a great place with my job role. I know that there will be more challenges, achievements and tough moments but that making a proper impact as a Health Mentor requires patience. This has led to great mentor-mentee relationships so far with new targets for both me and them to strive for in 2025. Helping each one of them is my biggest achievement and that requires patience with myself, with them and with the progress that we aim to make week by week.
Harry Mason- Evolve Health Mentor.
