Note: The ATA's
Prison Service Project puts mentors in touch with incarcerated students as
part of our effort to share the benefits of Tarot-work with others. If you
are interested in serving as a mentor, consider the following guidelines
... and please contact us.
Tips for Students
1. Protect yourself. Only
share what personal information you feel comfortable sharing.
2. Don’t offer up details
behind your incarceration to your mentor. Honestly informing your mentor
of your crime is fine if asked, but shock value is not. Your crime has
little to do with tarot and change.
3. Don’t take advantage
of your mentor. They volunteer their time and knowledge to help you grow.
Respect your mentor and yourself. Don’t ask them for money, cards, or
other things; they are not your family or loved ones.
4. You represent inmates
everywhere to your mentor. How you present yourself is how they will see
all inmates.
5. Make regular contact
with your mentor, at least once a month.
6. Respect your mentor’s
right to privacy. Do not pry into your mentor’s private life. Properly
dispose of anything bearing their mailing address, do not pass it around.
7. Respect, observe, and
apply your Code of Ethics and those of the organizations you are
affiliated with.
8. Be honest. If you are
uncomfortable with a topic, request, or even with your mentor then say so.
You only harm your mentor and yourself by holding in difficulties.
9. Do the work. Your
mentor is not a pen pal, they are your teacher. Don’t waste their time or
your own. Your honest answers are more impressive than bragging or
posturing.
10. Take some time when
you are first assigned a mentor to explain what you expect and want from
them. Opening a dialog helps prevent later issues.
11. Advise your mentor of
your facility’s mail policies and requirements.
12. Never lose sight of
the purpose behind the mentor-inmate relationship – tarot!
Tips for Mentors
1. Protect yourself. Only
share what personal information you feel comfortable sharing. Consider
using a P.O. Box or mail forwarding through ATA Headquarters to ensure
your privacy.
2. Don’t ask about a
student’s crime, or if you must ask, don’t ask for details. The reason
they are incarcerated has little to do with tarot or change. Be warned by
the fact your student is an inmate that you are not dealing with the best
society has to offer.
3. Not all criminals are
in prison, and not everyone in prison is a criminal. It is always best not
to be too judgmental.
4. Try to erase the
television image of prison from your mind. While some could be like you
see on TV, you might be surprised by an inmate’s life.
5. Be aware. Don’t be
gullible, go into mentoring an inmate with your eyes open. While not all
will try to con you, there may be some. Do you trust everyone you meet?
6. Don’t offer more than
you are willing to give. No means no – don’t be afraid to say it.
7. Don’t try to fix,
analyze, or change your student. At best you have very limited contact,
and little information to go on. Just stick to tarot.
8. Make regular contact.
To the inmate student, both tarot and your input are extremely important.
Regular mail is slow and inconvenient, but it is all an inmate has.
9. Make a list of things
your are willing and unwilling to do for your student, and stick with it.
Only you can decide how far you can or should go.
10. Respect, observe, and
apply your personal Code of Ethics as well as that of your organization
for every student.
11. Respect your
student’s right to privacy, just as you expect them to respect yours.
12. Be honest. If you are
uncomfortable with a student’s request or even with a student, say so. You
only harm yourself and your student by holding in difficulties.
13. Take some time when
you first take on a new inmate student to explain what you expect and want
from them. Opening a dialog helps prevent later issues.
14. Ask about
institutional mail policies and stick to them. Excessive photocopies or
printed Internet pages, for instance, can delay or prevent a student from
receiving your letters.
15. Never lose sight of
the purpose behind the mentor-inmate relationship – tarot! |