Adverse Camber – Pathways Mentoring Scheme

The aim of our Storytelling Pathways project is to work with partners, the sector, and underrepresented voices in storytelling to ensure we have a strong sector in England for the future.

Storytelling Pathways is the seed for the start of our growth and amplification of underrepresented voices, including talent development, regional-national partnerships and supporting stronger career pathways. 

What is included in the Pathways Mentoring Scheme: 

Five applicants will be selected to receive 5 x 2 hour long mentoring sessions. The mentee will receive £1,000 towards their time and development. Additionally, each applicant will be allocated £1,000 to cover their mentor’s time, which equates to £200 per session for five sessions of mentoring. This is a standardised rate Adverse Camber uses which mentors will need to agree to. Adverse Camber is committed to making the mentoring process more equitable, this includes ensuring both parties are paid for their time. 

Mentoring will take place between March and September 2025, with interviews and candidate selection happening at the end of February.

Throughout the process, Adverse Camber will support the mentee and the mentor, including a first meeting to ensure that both parties can set goals and outcomes for their time together. We will also function as a neutral third party to support both creatives through the process and mediate should issues arise.
There will be the opportunity for informal meetings between the mentees to discuss career opportunities, network and share their experiences of mentoring and the industry.

This budget assumes meetings will take place online. If appropriate mentoring may take place in person, however there is no additional budget for travel.

Who’s it for:  

-    We are excited to receive applications from a broad range of storytellers with a diverse range of experience. The aim of Pathways and this mentoring scheme is to increase the access and diversity of storytelling across England. The scheme will hold three of the five mentorships for artists who self-identify as global majority.  We are also keen to hear from artists from working class backgrounds, women, LGBTQIA, disabled people and people with care experience all of whom are currently underrepresented. We encourage anyone who thinks they may benefit from mentoring to apply. 
“Global Majority” refers to people who are Black, Asian, Indigenous, mixed-heritage, and/or have been previously referred to as "ethnic minorities". We use "people of the global majority" since this represents over 80% of the world’s population.

-    Applicants will be 18+ and primarily based in England, there is no upper age limit for the opportunity.

-    We are expecting a diverse range of applications from different experience levels, interests, and styles of storytelling. Applications may come from early and mid-career creatives, as we are just as interested in supporting artists who are in their first years of storytelling as well as those who are established in their practice but would like to make a change to how they work, especially if this change involves making their practice more sustainable or diverse. Applicants may range in the support they are looking for, for example some may apply with the intent to focus on the business side of storytelling, where as another applicant will be looking for artistic development, e.g. building repertoire or performance. Regardless of area of interest for mentoring, applicants will be able to articulate ‘where they are’, ‘where they would like to be’ and ‘why they think mentoring will get them there’ and ‘why now’.

-    All or part of your creative practice is defined as oral storytelling – we understand that creatives have multi-faceted practices, but Adverse Camber is dedicated to oral storytelling and the mentoring scheme is designed to support the development of oral storytellers. We are looking for people who have a history or ambition of working in oral art forms, including spoken word, “traditional” storytelling, or performance.
We define oral storytelling as the oral telling of stories through spoken word, voice, and gesture, which can also include spoken word, rhythm, music and poetry. The tales being told may have been passed down orally, such as traditional tales, myths, legends, and folktales and can also include personal, contemporary, or historical stories.

-    If you’re not sure about the criteria above or have any questions on the application process, join us for an online Q&A on Monday 27th January 6 – 7:30pm or send us an email. You can book for this here: https://adversecamber.org/event/open-online-forums 

How to apply: 

Adverse Camber is committed to access, therefore applications can be made through an online form found HERE, applicants can alternatively submit by sending a document, video or audio file to ---- answering the questions below. 

If applying on a word document, your total application should be no more than 2 sides of A4.

If applying as a video or audio file, please keep the total length to no more than 10 minutes.

Deadline: Midnight on Sunday 9th February.

On Monday 27th January, 6 pm – 7:30 pm we will be hosting an open Q&A to discuss the opportunity and answer any questions about the application. 

Interviews will take place on the 17th & 18th of February – we aim to interview 8–10 candidates. Applicants will be given interview questions in advance and all interviews will take place on Zoom. 
BOOK HERE

Depending on the number of applications, we may have several rounds of shortlisting. All applications will be read by Adverse Camber team members Naomi Wilds and Aoife O'Connor. Members of the Co-Design team will shortlist and interview alongside Adverse Camber.

Questions

Name

Location

Pronouns

{optional} Access Requirements

Tell us about you and your practice – tell us about any projects you’ve worked on, performances, previous funding or mentoring experiences. We want to get to know you – maybe you aren’t a storyteller full time, tell us about other elements of your career. Do you have an out of work hobby or an interest. This may be a good place to talk about your experiences/influencing in storytelling – e.g. as a LGBT person you may focus on stories that have clear LGBTQ+ themes or histories.

 

What area of your career would you like to work on? How will mentoring develop your practice? – this is your opportunity to tell us about the mentoring you’d like. The best applicants will have a clear idea about what element of their practice they’d like development with. This doesn’t have to have a definitive answer, but a strong application will consider an “issue” or “gap” in their practice, why it’s an issue or the effect its having and how mentoring would address the “issues”.

 

Why Now? – tell us why now, we want to understand why mentoring would suit your practice now. We understand that these are difficult times, but we would like you to think about this in a more positive context e.g. “I am currently taking on less work because X, but this has allowed me to reevaluate my practice and recognise “gap” that I can begin to work on through …” Consider other opportunities you’ve had, have you just finished a project, or received funding from an alternative source etc. what has this taught you and how can you action it.

 

Have you been mentored before? 5 Key Words to describe the mentoring experience – Yes/No. If you have been mentored before, specifically in storytelling. Include Five key words/bullet points to describe the experience e.g. transformative. If you haven’t been mentored before, please use the bullet points to describe how you would like the experience to be.

 

Do you have a suggestion for a mentor? Who & why? – We would like to hear any suggestions or thoughts you’ve had about a mentor. If you know someone who’s experienced similar issues or who’s career you admire. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a “realistic” mentor, you could go down the dream experience scenario. Again, we’d like to see an answer that shows you’ve thought about the mentoring experience and the impact it can/will have on your career. If you don’t have an example of a specific person, suggest some characteristics or interests of the mentor.

 

Do you identify as Global Majority? 

“Global Majority” refers to people who are Black, Asian, Indigenous, mixed-heritage, and/or have been previously referred to as "ethnic minorities". We use "people of the global majority" since this represents over 80% of the world’s population.