“Jenn was a mentor at Digital Mums in 2014 providing a huge amount of personal and professional support to the first cohort of Digital Mums. She is extremely reliable and goes above and beyond to deliver. Can’t recommend her enough!”
Nikki Cochrane, Digital Mums Founder
Digital Mums, like ost fabulous ideas, was born out of a wish to make the world a better place. Nikki lives in Hackney; a creative area with numerous small businesses she knew would benefit from social media but didn’t have the time or budget. She also know many professional women who were unable to return to work because of the prohibitive cost of childcare and a lack of flexible jobs.
Her solution was to bring the two together for the benefit of all; so Digital Mums was born!
Nikki identified me as a potential mentor for the pilot test from my professional experience in digital. I had also recently become a mum myself. I knew many of the problems faced when you have a child; with confidence, time management and getting your identity back.
I worked with my mentee, Karen for 6 months, between January 2014 and July 2014. We met once a week via Google Hangouts with additional email telephone support as required. My goals as a mentor were:
- Building confidence
- Developing new skills and improving existing skills
- Support through training and initial employment
- Finding work within digital or social media
“Thanks for all your help and support with the DM stuff and more generally.”
Karen Murray, Digital Mum
I partnered with Karen throughout her personal Digital Mums journey that consisted of 5 weeks of initial training and then placement with a partner company whom she worked for as their social media manager. Together, we covered everything from campaign ideas through to professional goals that Karen wanted to achieve and her hopes for her own career post-birth.
I travelled to London twice to meet with Karen, improving our understanding of one another as professionals and the effectiveness of our relationships. I also assisted Nikki as a facilitator for a group training session at the beginning of training to introduce the Digital Mums to one another.
This was the first mentoring experience I had. It was an amazing way to use my professional knowledge in a different way, for the benefit of someone else who was developing themselves. Mentoring was a huge commitment to another person. Karen left with positive outcomes. Not the ones we both went arrived thinking she would end with, however that was part of the attraction for me. Working with someone as closely as mentoring is a personal journey for everyone involved, and rewarding if you can manage to find the balance required between supporting and encouraging independence.
