Reverse Mentoring

The Reverse Mentoring Scheme is being delivered by careers services at The University of Birmingham, Newman University and University College Birmingham, via the Transformation West Midlands project. This project is funded by the Office for Students (OfS), who have chosen 15 universities to test ways to boost the job outcomes of local graduates, improving their local economies.

Eligibility criteria

In order to join to the Reverse Mentoring Scheme, you must meet all of the criteria listed below:

• Are a current final year undergraduate student
• Or a penultimate year undergraduate student, in your second year of a three year course
• Or a penultimate year undergraduate student, in your third year of a four year course 
• Or a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree (within the last 2 years) who is currently unemployed or not in a graduate level job
• Studying/studied at The University of Birmingham, Newman University or University College Birmingham
• Are a local student/graduate from the West Midlands region. For this project, we define the West Midlands as: Birmingham and Solihull, the Black Country (Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton), Coventry and Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Telford and Wrekin, and Worcestershire.

Eligibility criteria is due to the funding received from OfS to support local graduates into local jobs, particularly under-represented students

• As Mentors (students/graduates) you are offering your time voluntarily and part-time, over the period of January - March/April 2022. Up to 5 Mentors (students/graduates) will be paired to each organisation from across the 3 partnership universities.
• You will need to be flexible and organise your time to fit with your fellow Mentors and the organisation.
• Around 1-2 hrs for 3 meetings between Jan to March plus any extra time you can give. This could include a 1-2 hour virtual meeting every month, as well as non-contact time, which is likely to be email or telephone. Travel expenses will be covered where necessary, although in light of COVID-19 we expect no travel to be undertaken by participants unless specified by the organisation.
• To help Mentors gain confidence, learn about mentoring, how to have influential conversations and build strong relationships, a virtual launch and training session will take place on Friday 28 January 2022.
• To support your skills development, a short written reflection record will be expected.

• Please make sure you have read each of the organisations' Challenges to help you decide which organisations you would like to select to Mentor.
• You can select up to 3 organisations to Mentor in order of preference, however you will only be paired with one organisation. We cannot guarantee you will get your top preference, based on the number of participants joining.
• The joining process consists of answering just a few questions! Should we receive a high number of joining forms, we may need to select participants based on the quality of answers put forward. Some questions are ‘marked’ to help with the shortlisting process if required, but we will try to accommodate all who apply, to benefit from this excellent experience and to help create positive change. 

Privacy Statement - Transformation West Midlands 

Last updated 4 October 2021

Who are we?

The University of Birmingham, Newman University and University College Birmingham have won a grant from the Office for Students to help boost job opportunities for local graduates in the region. The project is called ‘Transformation West Midlands’ and the three university partners will work closely with key employers in the region to help them recruit locally and diversify their workforce. 

Key to the project is improving the employment outcomes of local undergraduate final year students and graduates* who are from the West Midlands region, seeking work in their home region, supporting in particular Access to Birmingham participants; Black and minority ethnic students/graduates and students/graduates with disabilities. The activities that we deliver are intended to help identify what enables the progression of individuals, so that we can share learning between our careers services and universities, to improve support and provision, boosting graduate job employment.  

The University of Birmingham is the lead partner and will report to the Office for Students and inform the UK Higher Education Sector of the outcomes of this project.  

A number of activities, online resources and information (e.g. skills development training; networks, mentoring, reverse mentoring and events across the West Midlands) will be available to you. This is to help raise your awareness of opportunity in sectors and locations and enhance your personal/professional development.  

What personal data are we collecting?

When you participate, you provide the project with your name, university, year of study, programme of study, student ID number, your postcode, gender, ethnicity, health/disability data and your engagement with the project, as well other information collected on the student record systems, such as Careers Network’s ‘Careers Connect’ which you may have accessed to register for any careers events. We will also collect your feedback e.g. through surveys, questionnaires, reflection logs and focus groups. Only personal data related to the Transformation West Midlands project activity will be held at the University and shared across the partner universities.  

If you are in receipt of progression coaching, we will be collecting further details from questionnaires that you have completed; your written answers to questions put forward to you mid-way and upon exit of coaching and other communications, to determine how helpful coaching has been to support your progression. We will also be collecting data related to your career destination, sectors/roles of interest and your career goals to determine if you reached your goals as a result of the support offered and your actions. We will also be collecting data that relates to the effectiveness and administration of coaching such as number of appointments; career development; any skills gaps or generic barriers; whether you accessed other support such as mentoring, so that we can review and create quality provision that enhances students’ and recent graduates’ employability skills and knowledge. 

To evaluate the effectiveness of progression coaching, coaches from each of the partner universities will be producing a small sample of anonymised case studies for their own reflective practice, to assess challenges, development, results and learning points in order to explore what makes the difference to progression. Additional data collected that may be used, will be from coach notes, action plans and any email correspondence between the coach and coachee that links to progression and barriers to help improve support. 

How will we use it?

This project aims to develop your knowledge, confidence, skills/competencies so that you are better prepared for the workplace and for what local industry demands.  We will test a number of interventions/activities to create a stronger support network, with the goal of leading to higher level graduate employment or further study for individuals that live in the region. 

We will use your personal data to: 

• Deliver additional services and facilities to you, related to careers which are part of the Transformation West Midlands Project and include the partner universities; 

• Communicate effectively with you including the distribution of relevant newsletters and invitations to take part in other careers related activities; 

• Evaluate, monitor and report on how students and recent graduates are accessing our services, plan for future courses and activities, and plan/provide help or reasonable adjustments; 

• Evaluate to what extent we are enabling progression, (which may lead to a graduate level job, further study, employment or self-employment) and which interventions are more effective, to improve how careers services work with local and under-represented students/graduates; 

• Review and report on coaching using data from coaching sessions for creating small anonymised case studies in order for the coaches and the project team across the partner universities to share their reflections on coaching as an intervention for enabling progression towards graduate employment.  

• Communicate anonymous feedback to others for the purpose of marketing and knowledge sharing. Feedback includes any insightful reflections that you have provided identifying key themes, progression enablers, activities you found beneficial or tips that would assist others to progress their career endeavours.

What is the legal basis of the processing?

We consider the processing of your personal data for these purposes to be necessary for: 

• the performance of our contractual obligations with you; 

• the performance of tasks we carry out in the public interest; 

• the pursuit of the legitimate interests of the University or external organisations (e.g. to enable your access to external services). 

We do not use your personal data to carry out any wholly automated decision-making that affects you. 

Who will your personal data be shared with?

Your data will be securely shared between the University of Birmingham, Newman University and University College Birmingham to enable the project to evaluate the success of Transformation West Midlands. Coaching conversations, action plans, coach notes will remain anonymous, so your privacy is protected.  Within the University of Birmingham, succinct coaching notes including plans outlining your actions will be shared along with your personal data with Careers Network staff for the purpose of providing you with additional support and service delivery.

Anonymous data will be shared with the external funder, Office for Students, and their evaluators, as part of its reporting obligations to show progress and results. The Transformation West Midlands Steering Group** and colleagues of the three universities will receive anonymous data on a needs to know basis. At the University of Birmingham, this includes (but not restricting), Careers Network, to positively change any practice as a result of learning; the Student Access and Progress Committee that monitors performance against the University’s Access and Participation Plan (e.g. interventions to support A2B students); the University Executive Board and the Council to learn of progress and results.

Anonymous data may also be shared with other organisations and the public interested in the project, shared for instance on the Careers Network website to assist with other local students/graduates’ progressing; the OfS website; other higher education institutions to share best practice and local / regional employers to foster greater collaboration and job opportunities.  

Your rights

More information about how the University of Birmingham, the lead partner uses your personal data and your rights can be found on the How the University uses your data page and supplementary page student privacy notice.

*Graduates - West Midlands graduates (from the region) who have studied at Newman University, UCB and University of Birmingham, graduating in the last two years with a bachelors degree; currently unemployed or underemployed. The West Midlands area includes Birmingham and Solihull, Black Country (Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton), Coventry and Warwickshire, Hereford and Worcestershire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Staffordshire. 

**Transformation West Midlands Steering Group – Black Country Consortium, Citi-Redi, GBSLEP, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, University of Birmingham Guild of Students, Uprising and the partner universities. 

Please read this if you are submitting anything about yourself (i.e. your personal data) for the purpose of University and Transformation West Midlands project communications and publicity.  

It is completely voluntary to submit any personal data for the use of your photographs, recordings, vlogs, blogs, quotes, case studies etc. that you submit. That means it is your choice to include your full name, degree course, year of study/graduation year and any other personal data that may collectively identify you. Therefore, when you send your material to us, please do not submit any personal data that you do not wish to be used in the described ways.  

Your materials will be used to publicise the benefits of you using or participating in activity and to help demonstrate visually to other students, graduates, higher education institutional careers colleagues and employers/other providers what these services are like. 

Your materials may be used in the following sources or any others, as the University of Birmingham, Newman University, University College Birmingham and the funder (Office for Students) sees fit: 

• The University’s world wide website and e-publications 

• Paper-based University and publications 

• Transformation West Midlands project presentations to students and graduates  

• Transformation West Midlands project presentations to employers and careers colleagues in the Higher Education Sector  

• Transformation West Midlands reporting that evidence activity and project feedback 

• Summative reports to the funder and its evaluators  

The lawful basis for storing and using your personal data for the described purposes is ‘legitimate interests’, which means we need to process the personal information to fulfil our objectives, we believe it will not adversely affect you and we think you would expect it. The legitimate interests are that it is necessary for the involved organisations to publicise the benefits of the use of and participation in this project and to demonstrate visually to other students, graduates, higher education institutional careers colleagues and employers/other providers what these services are like. 

Non-exhaustive examples of what form your personal data might take or how it might be used include: 

1. Photographs
2. Video Recordings  
3. Voice Recordings
4. Vlogs
5. Blogs
6. Case studies
7. Written feedback 
8. Podcasts
9. The University using your written feedback, blogs or case studies to create a video or animation 

The personal data will be stored and used for as long as necessary for the described purposes. After this time it will be securely destroyed.  

If you later change your mind and wish to opt out of having your personal data used in this way, please contact Alison Sharp, Project Lead, Transformation West Midlands a.sharp@bham.ac.uk who will consider whether it is reasonable and possible to stop using / remove your personal data. We wish to treat people well and where it is reasonable and possible to stop using this personal data / remove this personal data, we will do so. However as the lawful basis for this use of personal data is legitimate interests and not your consent, the organisations are only obliged to stop using / remove any personal data where your interests outweigh the interests of the organisations.