Mentoring teenage girl - looking for advice

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Hello,
I recently started mentoring a teenage girl through a programme with her school. I don’t know her details but the programme is predominantly for children with difficult backgrounds/ home life. Let me start by saying, I really really like her. She’s funny and bright and when she lets her guard done we get on really well. I’ve noticed sometimes she’s difficult to engage in conversation so while we’re just establishing our mentor relationship I was looking to see if anyone has any activities we could do during our time together. We get around 50mins per week. I’ve been painting her nails which she really enjoys but last time I found her quite distracted by others in the same area as us and she was more interested in disrupting them so I want to find other things that could focus her and keep her engaged. I’ve got a list of things to try such as card games, colouring books, bracelet making, mug painting, etc. in the summer we can go for walks etc.
But I wondered if anyone has an activity we could do to maybe brain storm some ideas she’d like to do in our time together or set some goals for the year. She was being quite negative at our last meeting - probably due to being back to school after the holidays! But I want to be a positive influence on her and try encourage and support her as much as I can in my role.
any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Common third is good for this. That is where together you both learn a new skill that neither of you have any experience in. So you are both starting from scratch. This builds confidence in the young person (as you are not the expert) you can role model getting things wrong, being resilient, persevering, dealing with frustration, deferred gratification, acknowledging success etc.
The skill should be chosen by the young person e.g.
playing guitar, juggling, icing cakes the only limitation is that neither of you should be more advanced than the other. You need to both be novices so that you are equal.

This is a fantastic idea! Thank you so much for responding and for the very helpful advice. Will speak to her about this this week!

Hi does the mentoring take place during lessons. My daughter is getting mentoring during lessons and I am not happy with that. How will she catch up with what she missed?

Hi, yes my mentoring does. I guess it depends on the individual but the girl I mentor has attendance of 50%, she is barely in school as it is so the mentoring is partly seen as a way of improving school attendance. Already she has said to me, and others, ‘I wasn’t going to come in today but remembered I had a mentor meeting so did’. We also vary which lessons she misses each week so not to fall behind on one class and she I’d never allowed to miss maths, English or any core subjects. The children in the school I mentor in usually have behaviour issues which is why they’re referred to the mentoring service in the first place. Children with mentors in these situations are also twice as likely to leave school with qualifications and go on to further education/work than those without a mentor so it has loads of benefits and is not hindering their learning.

Oh I see. My daughters situation is different. It'd due to the fact that I have a very serious illness and an hospitalised regularly. Also her twin is diagnosed with autism and we have had a very tough time. Her behaviour is good and she has perfect attendance. They originally got her an appointment during one of her science classes a week (there are 3 a week). She had missed about 6 classes when I made them stop. Now they asked her what subject she can miss on another day and she said technology because the teacher is "boring ". I'm trying to change It to RE but they are acting like I'm unreasonable. I don't think it's right for her to totally miss out on classes.

yes totally different situation so I completely understand why you wouldn’t want her missing lessons, especially if it’s the same one each week. It seems unreasonable of the school! Hopefully they are able to come to some type of arrangement that you’re all happy with and your daughter is able to be benefit from her mentoring. I absolutely love it and get so much out of it! It’s amazing to watch the confidence in my young person grow.