The decision to leave home is always characterised by grief, loss and fear.  It is not taken lightly and its aftermath is life-long.  When a boatload of asylum seekers bobs onto the horizon, we are not witnessing the final chapter of a ‘choose your own adventure’ story; we are witnessing the fallout of the worst conflicts and human rights violations on the planet today.

Jessie Taylor is a barrister, refugee advocate and human rights enthusiast.  She is also foster mum to a teenage boy who travelled to Australia alone as a refugee from Afghanistan.
Jessie has honours degrees and Law and Arts from Monash University and a Master of Science (Humanitarian Action) from University College, Dublin.  She is secretary of Liberty Victoria and a former Chair of the Law Institute of Victoria Refugee Law Reform Committee.
Jessie is the author of the report, ‘Behind Australian Doors: Examining the Conditions of Detention of Asylum Seekers in Indonesia’.Gu

Announcements

Sergeants Session 

Despite the Chairman’s best effort to ignore him Michael stood his ground and insisted on another “Would I lie to You “ segment, this time featuring the ever reliable Superintendent Neville Taylor.  Supt Taylor did a superb job in convincing the audience he was totally untruthful about a remarkable piece of policing. The reality was almost all of what he said was the truth – only the place was changed to protect the innocent.

Guest Speaker of the Day: Peter Wilson AM on Mentoring

Peter explained how the term Mentor came about.  It derives from ancient Greek mythology, Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War. 

The term mentor is often confused with being a coach.  Mentoring is about the long term development of the mentee, coaching is a short term targeted intervention to develop a specific skill/s. Depending on who you talk to mentoring has three underlying principals; Socratean – the wise elder, Quasi Parental – a more direct interest in the mentee or Spiritual – built on shared values.  

In researching for his book, “Make Mentoring Work”, Peter explored the meaning of mentoring by interviewing 90 notable Australians in many leadership roles and looked at 20 mentoring programs including the Victoria Police Leaders Mentoring Program.  
Among the interviewee were John Eales, Michael Kirby, Bob Hawke, Mary Robinson, etc all of whom had their own take on mentoring but who all valued mentoring highly not withstanding the wide variety of careers and styles.  Many have had many mentors and continue to seek out people who can help them.

Peter also talked about the importance of talking about failure in a mentoring relationship, much can be learned from failure and how it is managed, Dr Fiona Woods talking about losing a patient and John Bertrand talking about sinking Australia 11 after 47 seconds were quoted as examples.  Peter finished with a neat summary of the elements of mentoring and the attributes of good mentors and mentees.