Off to a Positive Start! A New ICAN Mentor Shares Her Experience and Some Tips!

For National Mentoring Month, staff and IPA providers are sharing stories of mentoring relationship that have moved them personally and made a lasting impact on the lives and children and their families. The following is a success story featuring Stephanie McCumber, a Community Based Support Specialist SPIN Program. She has been mentoring children ages 6-9 since 2024.

The start to a rewarding career

Stephanie’s mentoring journey with ICAN is just beginning, but she can already see how rewarding it can be. She loves to be a positive influence on her clients and their families, and also enjoys how mentoring has shown her to appreciate all that life has to offer. It’s also shown her that treating everyone with compassion and empathy is so important, because you never know what they might be going through. Mentoring can become that bridge a child has between home, school and the community, strengthening their social and coping skills, and allowing them to grow in many ways.

Activities that build trust and create experiences

Identifying interesting, educational, inspiring and low cost activities to involve mentees in is fun and challenging, and learning from other mentors (along with some ingenuity and research!) helps outings become great opportunities for relationship-building. Outings can offer physical exercise, cultural experiences, spur friendly competition or introduce mentees to completely new experiences… right in their own backyard!

Stephanie has a lot of different activities she likes to bring her mentees to while she works hard to build a positive and trusting relationship with them. She has already realized that you have to build relationships slowly, as rushing it can make a child nervous. Having a great place to go to 

Some of her favorite places to take clients:

• Sporting events
• Movies
• Musicals
• Bowling
• Playgrounds
• Get Air Trampoline Park

She is always seeking out low cost or free things to do with her mentees as well! There are a few beautiful nature trails, especially in the Herkimer County area like the Owen D. Young Nature Trail and Miracle Mile, as well as Moreland Park in Little Falls. She has also put together a backpack of assorted board games that she sometimes plays at the library or in the mentee’s homes and a basket from the Dollar Store of assorted crafts that they can pick out each week to do. Another spot that was a huge hit through the late spring to summer was going to the Herkimer ARC Park and the community swimming pools were big with her clients, too.

Owen D Young Nature Trail

She also pays close attention to social media for any local FREE events that are happening in the region. Especially around the holidays, but truly ALL year, there are great events, festivals and more which make for unique outings and offer fun activities.

A reflection on the experience of working with one of her first clients

She remembers one of her clients that was so shy when she first started working with him. He was struggling at school and would only want to be close to his mom when they met. Through patience and consistency in their meetings and outings, she slowly gained his trust. After six months of working with him, he now enjoys their outings and has even learned new social skills and is able to communicate with people in the community. He has also not missed a day of school with his newfound comfort and social skills.

“While mentoring, you build relationships with not just the mentee, but their family as well. Throughout that process, being a support for the family to help bridge the gap from school to home is imperative in helping these children thrive. In the conversations with my client's family, I was able to relate as an aunt, which in turn helps break down barriers which can impede the family's motivation to take ownership of their students' experiences in school.”

About ICAN’s SPIN Program

The families ICAN serves through our Service Provision for Individual Needs (SPIN) contracts are historically those that would have fallen into a service gap. Families with less intensive needs than our traditional programs can receive the support they need without an entire services case. By utilizing our services within SPIN, families, and caseworkers receive additional support and care needed to help reach goals and divert behaviors from becoming more serious.