Connect | Focus | Grow – Region 7 (Virtual)

The Connect | Focus | Grow training was developed as part of the National Mentoring Project, a pilot project  managed by MENTOR in partnership with the America’s Promise Alliance / Center for Promise and with support from the Schultz Family Foundation. The National Mentoring Project aims to expand the web of quality relationship supports and social capital that younger employees/mentees/interns need to develop the skills necessary to successfully navigate the workplace including securing and sustaining employment.

Underlying this training is MENTOR’s guiding vision, which is that all younger employees, mentees, and interns have access to a web of support from  caring adults and can form empowering relationships that:

• Promote the pursuit of the younger employees/mentees/intern’s passions, skills and interests
• Enable younger employees/mentees/interns access to and exploration of spaces where these can be pursued
• Help younger employees/mentees/interns overcome personal and/or institutional obstacles

This vision is underpinned by the approach MENTOR uses to help adults and younger employees form relationships, which is grounded in positive development and youth-centrism. This approach:

• Recognizes that young people are assets and experts about themselves and their communities
• Supports young people in identifying and building strengths
• Brings young people and adults together to work as equal partners as appropriate
• Builds young people’s connections to their own identity, culture and community helping them to see  their own social capital and supporting the extension of social capital through mentoring
• Engages young people as leaders on issues that matter to them

Date: 11/30/2023

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Register to attend!

Meet Your Facilitator:

Tamice Spencer-Helms is a published author, speaker, and trainer based in Richmond, Virginia. graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2006. She has since been in the non-profit sector, serving thousands of young adults and college students. In addition to her Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and Copywriting, Tamice has a Masters of Arts in Contextual Leadership and a Masters of Arts in Theology. She is credentialed in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, LGBTQ+ gender and sexuality studies.

Tamice is a thought-leader in culturally relevant and critically conscious campus engagement among Black College students. She co-founded an Atlanta-based collective for HBCU campus practitioners and planted six student-led chapters on HBCU campuses in the southeast. She has served as Senior Director of Student Leadership & Engagement at Virginia Union University, where she also taught courses in religious studies. Currently, she trains youth mentors in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is certified in training related to LGBTQ+ sexuality and gender identity and is a green belt in Lean Six Sigma.

Over the years, Tamice has been a change-maker and pioneer for young people in her community. Throughout her life, Tamice has connected, supported, and ministered to countless young adults. Her friendly and down-to-earth approach to public speaking and teaching, as well as her dedication to research and learning, has helped empower and inspire people in her community and beyond. In 2018 Tamice went on to found Sub:Culture Incorporated, a nonprofit that provides holistic support and crisis relief for Black College Students.

Tamice lives in the East End of Richmond with her partner Ellison and her daughter Harlym. In her free time she enjoys discussing and dissecting hip-hop, reading nonfiction, writing, watching documentaries, singing with her daughter, and eating her partner’s homemade pizza. She released her first book, Faith Unleavened this past year.

Hear from Tamice about the Connect | Focus | Grow curriculum