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What is MentorV?

MentorV provides an informal, one-on-one video mentoring experience fusing fast, free-form written expression to bring students along journeys of self-discovery and growth, while enhancing their communication skills.

Today’s students need opportunities to explore their voices and discover their own personal aspirations, purpose and intentions through writing.

Given the impact of COVID-19 on education, MentorV serves as a supplemental program that gives students the opportunity to develop their writing skills and explore their own personal strengths and weaknesses, while schools may not have the resources they need to provide support in this area.

Why MentorV?

Because it makes sense to encourage kids to learn about themselves, by writing about who they are and what they might want to accomplish in life.

Because, we need to listen to our kids (they are the future!) -- and help them find their Voices and understand their own Values and Visions.

Because, it’s amazing to see kids articulate on the page and explore the human language, to experience writing and the writing process as a space for exploration, and create their own narratives about the world we live in.
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Overview

The MentorV program is about writing and communicating. It’s about working to establish the student’s voice, via writing, concurrent with one-on-one video sessions with a MentorV mentor. It’s a program for the student, of course, but also for the parents, educators, guidance counselors, therapists, and nonprofits with whom we partner.

For students, the pen and keypad can be incredibly useful tools for working and seeing their way through today’s global landscape. In addition to developing writing and communications skills, MentorV aspires to give students balance and direction through a short-term program supplementing existing academic workloads, without overwhelming them.

The goal is to align student thinking along intentional next steps, goals, and purpose, and use writing to methodically create more focused, directed, and meaningful paths.
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Approach
We begin with a 30-minute video conversation with the student to collaborate on developing three writing prompts or topics that the student would like to write about for three, 20-minute, self-timed periods of free-form writing.

Students complete the writing on their own over the next few days and share their writing with us via Google Docs, for feedback.

In subsequent video conversation sessions, students receive critiques of their work and collaborate with their mentor to develop new writing prompts. The student may continue the program for as long a period as he or she wants to.

The writing process is an excellent tool for figuring out what students might want to do next with their lives. Much of the writing we do at work and in academic settings is challenging, requiring both mental and physical effort, and ultimately helps us to organize ourselves within the world we share.  

Fast, free-form writing for a set period of time can be a very enlightening experience, as the student expresses thoughts emerging as words from the mind, to the pen, to the page.

Pricing

The cost for an introductory mentoring session is $80, which includes:
  • a half-hour, one-on-one online meeting between the mentor and the student.
  • the development, in collaboration with the student, of 3 writing prompts.
  • a half-hour feedback call.
If the parent/student wishes to continue, each subsequent call/prompt development session will be $80.

Those who have a difficult time affording the program due to socioeconomic hardship will be offered the program at discounted rates individually or through the youth-serving nonprofits, veterans’ organizations, first-responder, and other groups we partner with.

Contact

Billy Treger is the founder of MentorV. A seasoned writer and writing coach with over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit, higher education, government health and human services, and corporate sectors, Treger launched his career as an investigative reporter for The Village Voice, The Nation, and for consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s Multinational Monitor and Essential Information media watchdog group. A dynamic connector and storyteller, Treger has led multiple advocacy and communications campaigns for a diversity of organizations including Sylvan Learning, AARP, the Maryland Department of Health, the Maryland Department of Human Services, Volunteers for America, the Centers for Disease Control, the International Youth Foundation, Porter Novelli, and the Association for Financial Professionals, among others. He has also written extensive online coursework in public policy, psychology, leadership, and social entrepreneurship for the Baltimore-based Laureate Education (Walden University). Treger holds a B.A. in English Literature and Communications from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an M.B.A. from the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also the proud father of three terrific teenagers.
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