Here are some questions that emerged for me after mentoring at Voices, an alternative to detention program, for eight months, through the YMEJ graduate seminar:

• What does it mean to build a relationship not just with a person, but a group of people, and perhaps even a program?
• How does this create/foster a multi-directional mentoring relationship?
• What are the commitments that people make to each other, to themselves and perhaps to an ideal?
• How does spending time analyzing and understanding these commitments allow me to develop a stance that is not only for my research but for my entire life?

This experience made me realize how much I want to privilege working with young people in my future research and in my life.

• How do I maintain my role at Voices now that the seminar is ending—is it possible?
• How do I recognize, understand and navigate large systems in which many of the people I care about are intertwined?
• How do I keep this present in my writing and research in an authentic way?
• How do I help to create sustainable mentoring opportunities?
• How do I expand conceptualizations of mentoring?

More questions than answers, I hope to return to this post and annotate it as my thinking continues.