By Gabbie Burton
Contributing Writer

Growing up in Liverpool, England as the first in his family to attend university from a single parent home, Neil Hall feels he could have benefitted then from the very type of program he now mentors teenagers through. 

Hall and his wife, Nicky Westhead both volunteer as mentors with Chester County Futures (CCF), helping advise students through high school and beyond. CCF is a non-profit organization offering after-school resources and support for students at Coatesville, Kennett, Oxford and Phoenixville high schools. 

Hall and Westhead have been mentoring students at Coatesville High School since 2021 and 2017, respectively.

“People talk about how ‘it takes a village,’” Hall said. “Well, CCF is a village because you’ve got all these other resources. I know from talking to my various mentees they have lots of conversations, and what you find is that you’re not the only one going through these challenges about grants and funding and where you’re going to live in college, but that everybody else is. There’s this great comfort there.”

CCF connects volunteer mentors with high school students through their shared interests and goals in order to build the most enriching relationship. While some of the mentoring is centered around academics and the college application process, the relationships that develop allow for deeper growth, and encourage the pairs to stay in contact for years after high school graduation.

“It isn’t just about education or going to college, it’s learning about life,” Hall said. “It’s learning to live as an adult and discovering that the refrigerator doesn’t magically restock itself once a week with food, and that your clothes don’t magically wash themselves.”

Both Hall and Westhead are still in touch with past mentees who are now in college and shared their experiences of supporting their mentees’ growth into adulthood.

“You see growth through many stages, and it is not just leaving school and entering college but about growth and clarity,” Westhead said. “Their self-confidence changes. They reach out and extend themselves to others and they make new friends and try new things. Of the two students in the program who have gone to college, they are trying new things that they haven’t done before.”

‘Investment’ in students

Westhead shared that mentors can provide an outside perspective on the students’ school and life experiences that teachers or parents can’t. It is an advantage that gives the students another avenue to seek advice and support from, further supporting the longevity of the mentorship.

“You are not in the situation or the system that the student is in, so I don’t have the same attachment a teacher has, who might have a particular view about where that student is going with their grades or in their classes,” she said. “I’m also not in their family systems so I don’t have that familial relationship.

“Basically, I’m independent, I’m objective, but at the same time, I am also invested in them.”

How “invested” both Westhead and Hall are in their mentees is abundantly clear. Westhead shared how her current mentee is talented in art and is passionate about sciences, something the pair connected over through Westhead’s career in business psychology. Hall, whose career has been in making pharmaceuticals and medical devices, said that going through the grant application process with his mentee took an intensive amount of work and dedication.

“We worked harder on that application than I probably do on presentations I give to the executives or board of Smith and Nephew and Johnson and Johnson,” Hall said. “In all honesty, I take more pleasure and satisfaction in the success of my mentees than I do with my own professional life now. I was so excited for my current mentee when he got that grant because I knew what it meant to him and I knew how it would help him, but it’s just so nice to be able to help these young people make progress in life.”

Being able to support and witness the journey of growth in their mentees is the best part of the mentoring experience for Hall and Westhead. However, their mentees are not the only ones growing in the process.

“Mentoring succeeds not just in one direction but two, because the student enriches the mentor’s life,” Westhead said. “I am enriched every time I have a conversation. I learn things, I get questions, I get challenged and I feel supported by them as well. We develop a relationship that is separate to being in the school system or the family system, and it can be a really interesting process of discovery for the mentor.”

The gift that mentoring through CCF has given to Hall and Westhead is not only an opportunity they are forever grateful for, but one that they wish to pass on to their friends in order to continue spreading support for local students and their communities.

“Mentoring students is an incredibly powerful gift that somebody can give,” Westhead said. “It is about investing in the future of whatever community you’re in, and while the individuals you mentor are enriched by the mentoring process, also you get something back as well.”

To learn more about Chester County Futures and its mentorship program, visit www.ccftures.org.

To contact Contributing Writer Gabbie Burton, email [email protected].