HOME · MENTOR SKILLS LAB

The training that makes the model work.

The Mentor Skills Lab is AMS’s immersive, practice-based training curriculum — the reason every mentor who sits with you is ready to be there.

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Evidence Based

BUILT FOR ADOPTEES

9

TRAINING MODULES

Multi-Day

IMMERSIVE COHORT

WHY IT EXISTS

Good intentions aren’t enough. We built something better.

Lived experience is the foundation of AMS mentorship. But lived experience alone doesn’t make someone ready to sit with another adoptee’s pain, navigate conversations about race and identity, or facilitate a group of five teenagers who’ve never spoken their truth out loud.

The Mentor Skills Lab exists because we take that responsibility seriously. It’s an immersive, practice-based training led by a multidisciplinary faculty with expertise in adoption, social work, clinical practice, and racial equity — designed to turn adoptees with the right instincts into mentors with the right skills.

Nine modules. Designed for what adoptees actually need.

The Mentor Skills Lab doesn’t teach mentors what to say. It trains them how to show up — with clarity, skill, and the kind of presence that makes a mentee feel genuinely met.

THE CURRICULUM

Mentor Skills Lab — Modules
Module 01

Mentor Role & Norms

The foundation of everything. Mentors establish role clarity, ethical boundaries, and a clear understanding of where mentorship ends and therapy begins — built around belonging, agency, and nonjudgment.

Module 02

Coachability & Reflective Growth

Strong mentors stay open. This module builds the mindset and practice of coachability — helping mentors remain curious, receptive to feedback, and committed to continuous learning.

Module 03

Strategic Self-Disclosure

Sharing your own story is one of the most powerful tools a mentor has. This module teaches how to do it with intention — connecting through lived experience while keeping the focus on the mentee.

Module 04

Adoptee Consciousness Model

A developmental framework for understanding how adoptee identity evolves over time. Mentors learn to recognize where a mentee is in their journey — and meet them there, not where they assume they should be.

Module 05

Facilitation Skills for 1:1 Mentoring

The core relational toolkit: open-ended questioning, reflective listening, emotional attunement, pacing. Mentors practice building trust and responding to the full range of what mentees bring.

Module 06

Building Rapport & Goal Setting

Trust doesn’t just happen — it’s built. This module equips mentors to establish connection early and co-create meaningful, mentee-driven goals that give sessions direction without losing flexibility.

Module 07

Racial Awareness in Adoption

Race, identity, and systemic inequity are inseparable from the adoptee experience for many we serve. This module develops the awareness, language, and accountability mentors need — not avoidance.

Module 08

Group Facilitation & Adoptee Lounges

Leading a group is a different skill than leading a 1:1. Mentors learn to hold space for multiple adoptee experiences at once — guiding conversation, managing silence, and keeping the room emotionally safe.

Module 09

Mentor Roundtable Design & Support

AMS mentors don’t work in isolation. This module builds the peer structures — roundtables, shared reflection, collective learning — that sustain mentors and strengthen the whole community of practice.

Trained by the people who built the field.

Mentor Skills Lab training is led by a multidisciplinary faculty with deep roots in adoption, clinical social work, racial equity, and lived adoptee experience. This isn’t a generic mentor training adapted for adoption — it was built from the ground up by people who understand what’s actually at stake.

THE FACULTY

Mentor Skills Lab — Faculty
JaeRan KimPhD, MSW
Spring HechtLICSW
Amy GellerDSW, LICSW
Bonni GoodwinPhD, LCSW
Ashley TolandDSW, LICSW
Robin DiAngeloPhD

The work doesn’t stop at the training room door.

AMS faculty and team members are active contributors to the research landscape around adoption, identity, and post-adoption support. The publications below represent the evidence base that informs everything we teach — and the broader conversation we're committed to advancing.

WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT

Mentor Skills Lab — Research & Publications

If you’re an adoptee who’s done the work, we want to talk.

The Mentor Skills Lab is the entry point for every AMS mentor. If you have lived adoptee experience and a genuine commitment to showing up for other adoptees, we’d like to hear from you.

BECOME A MENTOR

Apply to Become a Mentor →
Learn More About Mentoring at AMS

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We don’t train mentors to have the right answers. We train them to ask deeper questions — and to be fully present.