About Mentorship
Through our Mentorship Program led by alumni of The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, we hope to spread the deep knowledge that our fellows have gained on accurate and effective mental health reporting.
Alumni have volunteered their time to offer free mentorship sessions to journalists looking for guidance or mentorship on mental health reporting.
Language Guide for Reporting on Mental Health
If you’re a journalist on deadline, we recommend you check out our free guide.
Prepare to be mentored
Some tips to make the most of it:
- Plan ahead what you’d like to address. What topic are you interested in? What are your challenges? What do you need to know to report on it?
- Be respectful of your mentor’s time. Mentorship is voluntary and the people participating are busy journalists! If you need to reschedule or cancel, give them a heads-up well in advance.
- End your session with a game plan. Identify next steps, set a deadline for execution or follow-up.
Our mentorship program is for journalists or people working directly in journalism. Liberian journalist mentors also provide mentorship to student journalists in West Africa. If you have questions about the mental health journalism fellowships, please email carterfellows@cartercenter.org. For mental health programming, contact The Carter Center’s Mental Program at
Yes, you can. It all depends on coaches’ availability and willingness, their areas of expertise and your needs.
If you can’t make your mentorship session, please be respectful of your coach’s time and give them a heads-up as far in advance as possible. All mentors are volunteers and block off valuable time to mentor you. Life happens. But courtesy is important.
All of the mentors are alumni of The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism—the highly-competitive, yearlong, non-residential fellowship for journalists from the United States, Colombia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates to report on a mental health topic of their choice. Mentors are journalists who have been trained in mental health reporting and who have deep experience in mental health reporting. The mentors are all doing this on a volunteer basis.
This site was created and is maintained by the staff at The Carter Center’s Mental Health Program.
Right now, only past fellows or journalists who have been trained in partnership with The Carter Center on mental health reporting can be mentors. If you’re an alum or a journalist trained by us and you’re interested volunteering, please email carterfellows@cartercenter.org.
Thank you for thinking of us! You can help in a few ways:
- Spread the word to other journalists you think would benefit from mentorship.
- If you had a good mentorship experience, share your experience with us by tagging @CarterFellows on Twitter or emailing carterfellows@cartercenter.org.
Yes! There are several international journalists involved in this project, a group which will continue to grow. We will soon add mentors from Latin America and other regions.
Please submit your questions and feedback here.