Be who you’re mentor be
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Contents: Who are MAPS Sutton?
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What is MAPS mission?
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What do MAPS value?
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Where is MAPS based?
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Inclusion Mentoring
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Looked After Children Mentoring
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Leaving Care Mentoring
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Schools Mentoring
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Peer Support Mentoring
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Navigate
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Forty Assets
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How does MAPS support mentors?
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Support
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Training
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Activities
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Relevant Skills
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Identity, Community, Motivation
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What Makes a Good Mentor
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Meet Daryn ...
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How Can I Volunteer?
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And Finally ...
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Contact Us
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a story of success: .5
Sarah and Katie (Not real names):
Katie is an 18 year old who accessed MAPS after engaging in the local drugs and alcohol day programme called The LOFT – Our Inclusion Mentoring Coordinator worked alongside her there and referred her for a mentor through the Children and Young Peoples Integrated Support Panel. Katie had a number of challenges ranging from problematic drug and alcohol use, self harm, and adjusting to living alone. She instantly hit it off with Sarah, but it took several weeks of phone calls and meeting at The Loft before she was willing to meet for one to one support in the community as she was nervous of doing new things and meeting with new people. After several months they had been to the cinema, shopping trips, and a variety of long chats over meals. Katie was already showing much improved confidence, was not hanging around with dangerous individuals or groups and put thought into using drugs and alcohol more safely. The long term goal was to stop illegal drug use and cut alcohol dramatically. At the 6 month review they decided to set some further goals around drinking, and on reducing self harming behaviour by looking at building a positive identity and looking at trigger factors.
By months 9-12 Sarah and Katie started to wind down their intentional relationship. Over the year the problematic drug use had reduced, as had difficult relationships with staff at her accommodation. This was all achieved without much intense effort, just through calmly choosing smart goals and venting appropriately to Sarah. In evaluation Katie also mentioned the massive significance of feeling able to achieve things for herself, and praised her nonjudgemental, dedicated mentor. A year on from this mentoring experience, Katie is due to become a mum. She has significantly changed her behaviours. We are all very proud of the woman she has become and are confident she will be a wonderful, responsible mother.
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Who are MAPS? The mentoring programme here at the Volunteer Centre Sutton has a new name, some new faces, fresh ideas, and is launching a whole new model of mentoring building on our 9 year history and experience of delivering good practice youth mentoring in the local context! This booklet should help you learn a great deal about our programme, detailing the type of work we do, the young people we support, the mentors who volunteer and a whole lot more. It is our hope that in reading through the next few pages, you may be encouraged to get involved and become a volunteer mentor to support and help shape the life of a young person in Sutton.
Mentoring is an incredibly challenging and worthwhile enterprise! Equally life changing for the mentor as the mentee! We see it as a bit of a journey, where one person can travel for a time with another and both parties grow and develop because of the process.
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What is MAPS’ Mission? MAPS Sutton exists to address the social and community needs of a broad and diverse population within the London Borough of Sutton. We are passionately led by a vision of bringing the community together in a vibrant, inclusive and exciting way. This is achieved through the recruiting, training, and supporting volunteers from the local community working on a 1:1 basis to empower, enthuse, support and encourage young people to transition through difficult times and achieve independence, self worth, motivation and social and educational skills. This is framed by measurable outcomes that are monitored, evaluated and acted upon.
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What do MAPS Value? • We work in line with Every Child Matters and its 5 outcomes. • We are led by the needs of children and young people. • G ood communication is key, and our mentees play an active role in evaluating and developing the project. • All relationships are voluntary, built on trust and respect. • All relationships are structured with clear objectives. • We recruit, screen, train and support every volunteer mentor. • We regularly monitor and evaluate the project. • Every mentor is closely supervised and supported. • W e work within boundaries of good practice and child protection. • W e work in partnership with agencies and are flexible in our approach. We support and value one another’s work and are accountable for our good practice. • W e believe in equal opportunities for every volunteer mentor and young person.
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Where is MAPS?
MAPS sits within the provision of the Volunteer Centre Sutton. A brief description of the Volunteer Centre Sutton Volunteer Centre Sutton (VCS) is a Company Limited by Guarantee with Charitable status and is one of the largest volunteer centres in the country with 32 paid staff and in the region of 600 volunteers. We deliver a broad portfolio of services aimed at meeting our published Objectives including a diverse range of community based initiatives to Sutton’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged residents, including for example Befriending, Appropriate Adult, Mentoring & Youth Parliament services. VCS is Gold Star accredited for good practice in volunteering and the Centre currently works in partnership with over 360 voluntary & statutory organisations. Central to our role is to ensure a standard of good practice in the management of volunteers is maintained and ensuring volunteers are recognised for their valuable contribution to the local community.
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Track Record VCS has an impressive track record of successful service delivery whereby targets and agreed outcomes are consistently met and very often surpassed. We are experienced in the delivery of both small and large scale programmes including Lottery, ESF, local authority and trust funded projects. We have led on a number of partnership initiatives across South London and are experienced in the management of complex projects with rigorous reporting and monitoring requirements, including for example a recent commission by London Councils to identify sports and cultural opportunities and events across 7 South London boroughs. Specifically the centre has agreed to recruit volunteers from BAME, disabled and young people’s communities. We are particularly proud of our track record in delivering interventions to young people and have gained a reputation for delivering effective mentoring programmes to young people facing multiple disadvantage. Over the previous 18 months we have supported over 250 marginalised and isolated young people and currently have a pool of 90 mentors. Here at the mentoring programme, we are trying to bring about a positive change by strengthening our community and building social cohesion. We are in an ideal position to hold an integral role in this change as our various project streams span the age spectrum and we are able to utilise a vast array of skills, resources and passion for the area.
Our programme distinctives involve a heart for those struggling with social isolation, poverty, health deprivation, experiencing barriers to skills and training, low educational attainment and unemployment. These difficulties are found in all facets of community and Sutton is no different. We seek to provide an element of support and stability for those who often suffering the effects of discrimination, poverty and stigma. Sutton and neighbouring borough Merton both house areas that have traditionally been recognised as areas of deprivation. They both have up to 11 super output areas that fall among the most deprived 20% in England according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD 2004). There is also one area in Sutton that falls amongst the most deprived 1% in England for Crime deprivation. MAPS Sutton is at work within these communities partnering with voluntary and statutory services to provide a package of ongoing support for young people deemed at risk. We are proud to have both mentees and mentors from all the wards of Sutton and the surrounding area. We welcome a diverse make up of volunteers and referred young people. This dynamic wealth of talent and potential coming together is a real strength of our holistic programme.
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inClusion mentorinG Inclusion is a term we use to say nobody should miss out. It is an action that reaches the most marginalised, the most vulnerable. Many children today are faced with a poverty of support and receive a poor serving of positive role models. Inclusion mentoring does not seek to replace traditional support systems but rather seeks to empower the young person to bridge the gap step by step. Young people reach the inclusion stream of mentoring via the Children & Young People’s Integrated Support Panel (CYPISP). This is a multi-agency focal point where professionals working with young people within the borough come together to refer and discuss the the most appropriate interventions for
those young people at risk of social or educational exclusion. The panel have been very successful in ensuring young people receive a positive package of support which may include a number of diverse services, of which one is MAPS Inclusion mentoring. Inclusion Mentoring refuses to let young people fall through the net. It embraces the vast and varied circumstances young people face today and aims to support a young person on an individual basis by providing them with one-to-one support from a mentor - a volunteer specially chosen for them. A triangle of trust is built between the young person, the volunteer mentor and the mentoring project, and upholds ideals of confidentiality, consistency and commitment. The young person hangs out with his or her mentor, and together they work at taking those small steps to self confidence, self esteem and interdependence. An important aspect of Inclusion Mentoring is that the young person has ownership of the project. We do not push a perception of ‘helplessness’ on a child and indeed recognise that the answers to a young person’s issues can often be found within the young person themselves. We see each and every
young person as an individual, not just realising that they have a future but appreciating that they have a present. We give the keys of the project to the young person and invite them to take a lead role in their own individual mentoring relationship, the activities they engage in, the discussions that they have, are all initiated by them. We have found time and time again that the young people we have the privilege of meeting, hold so many of the answers to so many of our questions. Inclusion mentoring delivers sustainable results; we have a solid reputation for doing what we say we will do. Young people face social exclusion for many reasons such as low self-esteem, shyness, bullying, poverty, language barriers, racism, drugs and abuse. A mentor serves as a trusted, independent person who makes time to listen, and be a friend outside the home and school. Time spent with a mentor can help young people improve their opinion of themselves, it can challenge attitudes towards education and help young people play a fuller part in society today and prepare them for a brighter future tomorrow.
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Looked After Children MENTORING Some children and young people have difficult life experiences which sometimes require some form of intervention from a potentially wide range of services. The situation does not always, but can sometimes, lead to that child or young person then becoming ‘looked after’ by their local authority. There are also children who are known to statutory services, but are not legally (or currently) looked after or supported by them - for example, children who are privately fostered, under a residence order or special guardianship. These young people will have experienced significant trauma.
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Unfortunately the difficulties for looked after children do not end there. The prospects for looked after young people are significantly worse than others: they under perform at school and beyond. Only 9% are reported to achieve the benchmark five A* to Cs at GCSE, compared to 53% for all pupils. They face a difficult transition to independent living and are particularly likely to be unemployed and disengaged from education. Proportionally, looked after children are also more likely to be excluded from school and get involved in risk taking and inappropriate behaviour. Young people who are excluded have significantly reduced prospects in later life: they are more likely to have a criminal record, have lower levels of literacy and a greater chance of unemployment. A recent study identified that 12% of excluded children were out of work at aged 19 compared to 5% of non-excluded children. In Sutton, most looked after children are aged 12 and over with the majority coming from difficult situations. Statistically, looked after children in Sutton reflect the national picture
- 89% of looked after children in Sutton underperform at school and are more likely than the population as a whole to have behavioural difficulties, suffer health conditions and be involved in crime. Looked after children in Sutton can get a mentor! We know mentoring benefits young people and there is a wealth of research and anecdotal evidence to support this. Our mentoring programme has been particularly well received and supported by the local authority in this area of supporting looked after children because we have built a reputation for seeing a real impact in helping looked after children succeed, and also be protected from risky behaviour patterns. Time spent with a mentor can help young people improve their self esteem and attitudes towards education, attendance and desire to stay in school. There are some incredible foster carers and workers in the borough. You could prove to be a real added asset to a young person’s package of support.
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Leaving Care MENTORING Young people aged between 16-21 who have previously been looked after by the local authority and Young asylum seekers aged between 16-21. These young people are on the pathway to become independent young adults & have previously been looked after by the local authority. Now facing independent living, along with all the issues it presents, from planning and cooking a meal to general budgeting. All teenagers go through a time of difficult challenges, relating for example from money, employment, health & self esteem issues. One of the most striking unmet needs related to financial skills is budgeting and paying bills. Young people spoke of how difficult they found it trying to manage on a small budget, especially as most had never managed their own finances before. Many young people also revealed that living on their own
was lonely, particularly for those who had previously been accommodated in children’s homes or a foster family with several other children Those who leave care and go on to university are a tiny proportion - just 6% in England and 1% in the rest of the UK. That is why teaching them life skills that will give young people the support to succeed in their community is so important. These life skills vary, taking into consideration the young person’s needs, some need help with writing their C.V’s while some need help and support while continuing with their education. Unaccompanied asylum seekers also come within the group of Leaving care, as these young people have arrived in England not knowing anyone, and have no appropriate adult to assist them, hence the local authority has a care of duty towards them. These young people have quite often never left their homelands before arriving in England, and sometimes cannot speak English, so feel totally isolated. These young people have different needs to our care leavers, especially the language barrier, often having to overcome racism, discrimination and the threat of deportation.
When mentoring these young people the emphasis is the same; supporting the young person into inter-dependent living. I.e. knowing how to look after themselves on a day to day basis, knowing how to socialise, and knowing where to go for help when necessary.  Life skills are just as important to these young people. If you think of a simple task such as preparing a meal, our shops do not always stock the provisions these young people are used to & the goods in our shops do not always come with instructions so the young people can struggle to cook them. Mentoring offers whole new experiences, from simple things in life, like learning to swim to the more complicated issues such as living in their new community, community spirit not being perhaps what it was in their homelands.
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sChools mentorinG Each year many young people within the education system are identified as being in need of support. This can be for a myriad of reasons both academic, behavioural and more social. Schools are increasingly looking for new and innovative ways using both internal and external resources to significantly improve such pupils’ route through school and on to positive achievements. Mentoring has proven to be a tremendous mechanism for supporting young people presenting any such concerns by building tangible life and academic key skills, listening to worries, discussing relevant issues, exploring problems, helping with homework or revision, looking at how skills encouraged at school can be teased out to the benefit of local community, and sharing life experience. A volunteer mentor can be seen by pupils as the one person positioned well to help with their worries and hopes for education. The mentor is independent of the school, local authority, family and other agencies such as social services. This
independence allows them to truly listen to what is said and offer some suggestions of ways to make the transition though school easier and more positive. The schools mentoring stream is an excellent opportunity for those who wish to make a significant impact on the life of a young person, and indeed the culture of a local school. Only the most motivated volunteers should apply. Schools mentoring is highly reliant on engaging the young person, and unlike some of our other streams, this mostly happens within a classroom, or office context. We provide a resource manual full of ideas and games to stimulate good conversation, and these ideas are constantly being updated by mentors who week by week work hard to the benefit of some young people who find school challenging. It is remarkable how much of an impact the pupils have on the mentor. This is a real chance to realise and use your talents, learn more about yourself, gain new skills. Perhaps you too struggled at school, or absolutely loved it. We believe that even though some of the more difficult aspects of school life such as bullying and pressure to succeed are still present, so too are the occasions worth celebrating, the structure to help pupils achieve and surpass expectations. At any one time, MAPS Sutton is delivering good practice mentoring projects in up to 6 local schools.
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Peer suPPort mentorinG Who better to mentor young people than other young people? Navigating youth culture is difficult. There are so many things to take into consideration when supporting a young person, for example, cultures, subcultures, transition from one school to the next, puberty, peer pressures, identity, loneliness, the list could go on and on... We have found that young people are particularly skilled at supporting and encouraging each other. For this reason, MAPS Sutton have a peer stream of mentoring, mostly focussing on pupils from years 9-12 supporting years 6 and 7, and increasingly we are also looking for opportunities to promote peer mentoring within our other streams also.
Our peer mentoring is tailor designed to meet the needs of our key stage 4 mentors, and we have seen tremendous results and innovative ideas surface as they encourage the younger pupils. Having gone through similar struggles fairly recently, the trained peer mentor is an effective role model equipped to build confidence, and be approachable and accessible for even the most disaffected younger pupils. The mentors also benefit as they build leadership skills, improve on their own communication, experience being trusted to fulfil a distinct and vital role, amongst other qualities built. Finally we have found the schools to be very receptive and complimentary of the service, as they see the school environment grow in terms of its inclusivity, levels of protection and achievement.
naViGate Navigate has been developed by the mentoring team at Volunteer Centre Sutton, in partnership with the Youth Service and Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP). It builds on the previous successes and tradition of good group work for excluded young people in the Borough of Sutton. Navigate will provide young people between the ages of 13 and 15 with a wealth of positive social activities, thinking and key skills training, and opportunities for personal development and transition. It is our belief that too many young people in the Borough are unable to fully engage with the education system and the myriad of good services at their disposal, and subsequently find themselves disempowered, disengaged, and unable to make the best transition through to an opportune future, or indeed fully enjoy their teenage years as they are entitled to. Many young people also receive inappropriate referrals to services, who are then unable to fully support them. This has led to numerous early exits from the very programmes set up
to help them achieve, make positive choices and offer targeted support. This new intentional group support service features a number of key elements designed to foster hope and encourage real accomplishment from the young people: • Strong commitment from a robust multi-agency team with experience in delivering good support to young people at all levels of the Child Concern Framework. • A flexible, individual need based approach, differentiating the workload for each young person. • Locally managed tracking system that allows the right young people to access the programme through the CYPISP. We have also highlighted present needs for transitional support and vocational based opportunities for young people. Navigate provides educational opportunities through a number of different mediums to best engage those young people who may struggle in a more formal setup. This programme has been very successful in engaging many young people who have previously failed to get involved with education or other forms of intentional youth work. Our links through the Children and Young Peoples Integrated Support Panel and the Volunteer Centre positions us well to assess and signpost the young people to further positive opportunities on completion of Navigate.
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.01 family suPPort
.02 PositiVe family
.03 other adult
.04 CarinG Community
.05 CarinG sChool
.06 Parent inVolVment
relationshiPs enVironment
CommuniCations
in sChoolinG
4orty assets Here at MAPS Sutton we are very keen to live out the Every Child Matters outcomes, ensuring that all young people are given opportunity to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing. In order to do this well, we are developing an impact measurement tool based on an American (Search Institute) model utilising 40 developmental assets. The more of these assets present in a young person’s life, the more likely they are
to achieve, have a positive identity and behaviour, whilst being far less likely to be found ‘not in education, employment, or training’ (NEET), get caught up in offending behaviour, become disaffected and struggle to maintain social relationships.
.07 Community Values younG PeoPle
.08 GiVen useful role
.09 serViCe to
.10 safety
others
in Community
.11 family
.12 sChool
.13 Community
.14 adult role
.15 PositiVe Peer
.16 hiGh eXPeCtations
Boundaries Boundaries influenCe
Boundaries models
.17 CreatiVe
aCtiVities
.18 youth
ProGrammes
.19 reliGious
.20 time at home
.21 aChieVement
.22 sChool
.23 homeworK
.24 BondinG to
.25 readinG for
.26 CarinG
.27 eQuality and
.28 inteGrity
.29 honesty
.30 resPonsiBility
.31 restraint
.32 PlanninG and
.33 interPersonal
.34 Cultural
.35 resistanCe sKills
.36 PeaCeful
.37 Personal Power
.38 self esteem
.39 sense of PurPose
.40 PositiVe View of
Community
motiVation
Pleasure
soCial JustiCe
ComPetenCe
enGaGement
sChool
deCision maKinG
ComPetenCe
ConfliCt resolution
Personal future
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How Does MAPS Support Mentors? A key part of the programme here at MAPS Sutton is the support and guidance for our mentors and mentees. We have developed a framework for our volunteers ensuring that they receive the right training, resources, support and guidance from our friendly and enthusiastic team. We call it Guiding Stars.
GUIDING STARS: Support Training Activities Relevant Skills
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suPPort: This is of the key pillars of the Mentoring Programme. High levels of support from the coordinators is required to ensure our mentors are motivated, resourced and also importantly accountable. With this in mind, the mentors can access support in a number of ways. They automatically receive monthly supervision, and quarterly review and evaluation meetings where they can air any concerns, celebrate successes and plan for the coming month’s progression. Buddies Each mentor coming out of training is encouraged to contact a buddy. These are volunteers from the mentor steering group who have mentored for a significant time and who have worked with some of our most challenging young people. The mentors can then arrange to go out occasionally as a small group, instantly upping the young people’s social network and doubling the mentor skill base and activity opportunities. This is an excellent communication channel back to the team who are keen to best support new mentors.
Manuals Each mentor is armed with a training manual (named Boot Camp ‘Prepare’) and a resource manual (Boot Camp ‘Equip’). These documents have
progressed over the 9 years of our programme development and now encompass the 40 developmental assets. This means that right from the start mentors are planning their weekly activities around the themes we hope to develop in our young people i.e. boundaries, commitment, positive values, commitment to learning etc. This then links directly to our evaluation criteria. This great tool ensures our mentors are prepared and equipped for the task at hand.
Peer We also have mechanisms for mentors to support each other, online social networking, social events such as quizzes, sports etc and the mentor steering group. We have been thrilled to see this community of mentors beginning to interact and increase the capacity and potential of what can be realised for young people in Sutton.
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traininG: This consists of a 2hr Interview, 16 hours of training over 3 days and individual evaluation and feedback from our coordinators. This covers Child Protection, Goal Setting, Addressing Challenging Behaviour, Confidentiality and Boundaries etc. We are very proud of the excellent feedback we have accrued over the years for the standard of our training. We encourage prospective mentors from all walks of life to come and get involved. This spectrum of mentors becomes an immense strength of our programme as we match on shared life experience, skills and common interests. Top up Once mentors are matched they are invited back annually to conduct group feedback and undertake more specialised training. This may be around issues of supporting young people with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder), those who self harm, and other specific issues that may ensue during a mentoring year. Manuals: *See Prepare and ‘Equip’ under Support/ Manuals.
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aCtiVities: MAPS Sutton are convinced that activities are one of the best ways of developing young people, bringing the community together and developing new skills in all involved. Many of our young people find socialising difficult. Activities are a wonderful mechanism to encourage this. Well organised and planned activities can become an inclusive language. It can unite us, go beyond our personal experience or home background and when communication is difficult, activities can help us speak. We encourage different types of activity, all with different learning outcomes for our mentors and mentees:
One to One Every week up to 80 volunteer mentors and 90+ peer mentors meet their young people for their support session. There is an activity budget allowing those meeting out of school time to meet over food, or to pursue activities for the benefit of the mentee, such as sporting tuition, musical lessons, bowling, cinema or something even more creative.
Small Group Mentors and mentees are encouraged to occasionally seek other pairs to socialise with and try a new activity that requires
more group interaction. This often empowers the young people to communicate, plan and organise a group activity as well as boosting confidence, relational skills and showing that they are not so isolated and that many young people have mentors for similar reasons. Each month the mentees are encouraged to form a small group and work towards an appropriate social inclusion goal.
Community Celebration On occasion we like to gather many of our mentors, mentees, families and friends together as a way of saying thank you, and again to highlight the substantial size of the programme. This shows
that our young people journeying with us, and indeed the mentors trying to facilitate this transition are not alone. Our summer celebrations are a fantastic social gathering for good food, sports and awards for mentors and young people, and we anticipate the annual celebration continuing as a focal point, showcasing the successes of the programme each year.
Drop in This is an opportunity for mentors and mentees to foster new skills and develop new talents drawing on the experience and expertise of the team. These informal gatherings are purposefully low key, fun interaction is the no.1 objective and this has fast become a great place for any mentors or mentees awaiting matching to come along and catch a glimpse of the programme at work.
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releVant sKills: Celebrating Skills:
External Skills:
A newly developed stream of drop in provision. Run quarterly, this utilises the depth of experience of our team and the wealth of resource in our mentors. Celebrating skills kicked off with a drummer’s drop in, where young people played on 5 different drum kits, played the didgeridoo, learnt some basic electric guitar and keyboard, and had all of their efforts recorded by a professional sound technician.
We are fortunate to be plugged into a vast network of services offering training on a number of different topics such as Assertiveness, Working with young people on the Autistic Spectrum, Youth Work, and Drug and Alcohol Awareness etc. We are able to offer excellent training to mentors in specialist areas.
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IdentityCommunication Motivation MAPS Sutton have been commissioned to design and deliver an educational skills programme to encourage young people who are academically or socially excluded, not in education, employment or training or deemed at risk.
Navigate is our solution, a programme run in partnership with the youth service to promote key skills around identity, communication and motivation. A key strength of this programme has been the ability of the team to engage this particularly difficult target group of young people and truly capture their imagination. We seek to inspire the most disaffected young people and continue to be surprised by what they achieve and contribute.
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what maKes a Good mentor? We are looking for mentors who can really listen to young people, listening more than talking, without blocking what the mentee says if it makes them feel uncomfortable. Without becoming disinterested, thinking ‘I’ve heard it all before’. Without colouring what is said with their own perceptions, or discounting it by their own prejudices.
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We are looking for mentors who see intrinsic value in young people, for mentors who are motivated to see potential through to fruition, and for mentors who recognise that the process will benefit themselves as much as the mentee. Such people have usually seen the benefits of spending time with inspirational people, or been invested in by a good role model – we want our mentors to re-model the positive role model. Our mentors should be forgiving, even when the mentees throw everything they have at them, and the hard work is not seen, accepted or welcomed. They should be able to put aside the part of themselves that worries about such things and be committed to the long-haul. Mentoring is a long-term process. Our mentors need to be long sighted (not in the spectacles sense). They should care and be relational above all else. Our young people don’t care how much you know, they want to know how much you care. If this resonates with you, maybe you’re a mentor, and what you do know could rise at appropriate moments to lift the young people, empowering them to better things. Our mentors should know boundaries, when to pick up the phone, and when to say ‘No’. They should be peacemakers, and provide a sense of
stability. The constant support through whatever else the world or family, friends, school throws at the mentee, being there when they say they will be, consistent, with integrity, honest. Our mentors should spend time outside of the relationship preparing stretching activities, or looking for ways to develop more assets to the young person’s life, reducing risks, offering routes to real successes. Our mentors should be keen to be good practitioners, completing reports, feeding back info that needs to be shared, voicing concerns, celebrating steps forward. Our mentors should be intentional learners. Understanding that as the process of mentoring develops, they too need to be supported, coached, and stretched. They should be able to wrap this up in a couple of hours a week. And then we’ll chat to you about stage 2!
sound liKe somethinG you Could do? read on…
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Meet Daryn… Daryn mentors an 11 year old boy and they do all sorts of fun stuff including Badminton and thought provoking cinema trips! Daryn’s Mentee used to think he was rubbish at badminton, but through ‘Daryn’s Mentoring Master Classes™’, his mentee is now trying out for the school team!!
Daryn has won the mentoring HERO OF THE MONTH award for his dedication to building and growing his mentees self esteem and confidence. His mentee has a new sense of self worth which is an essential building block to future progression and achievement. His mentee’s mum has been in touch with us on a number of occasions to sing Daryn’s praises and thank us for the mentoring relationship. Our response every time is that this project is nothing without our mentors! You can truly make a difference. Thank you to all our mentors for being heroes!
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How can I volunteer?
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You could be a mentor! Every year we recruit over 50 new mentors to keep up with the demand for supporting vulnerable young people in Sutton. We need people who are willing to give as little as one hour a week to listen, motive, encourage and support a young person who would like your help. You can make an incredible difference to someone! The strength of the project is our reliance on good volunteers. The young person only has to engage if he or she wants to. The mentor engages as a volunteer, they are not paid to be there; rather they are there to make a difference. This coming together of minds achieves results and the young people frequently comment on the
importance of this voluntary aspect – earnestly or naively, they’ve often had enough of professionals. Mentors do however need the professional ethic! We need people who are committed! Young people are often disappointed by adults and we don’t want to add to that! The commitment is one year. We hold training three times a year {in March, July and November. Expenses are paid.
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And Finally‌ Mentoring can be easier than you may think. We encourage our mentors and mentees to spend lots of time telling stories and asking questions.Here are some examples of Questions our mentors may ask young people during the year (taken from our resource manual and based on the 8 sections of our asset model):
Support:
Commitment to Learning:
Do you think it’s hard for young people and adults to communicate?
What do you say if someone asks how you’re doing at school? How do you know if you are doing well? In your school, are young people pushed too hard, or not hard enough to succeed?
Who would you like to talk to if you were feeling pressured to do something you didn’t want to do? Why would you choose this person?
Empowerment: Name something you have always wished you could do. How could you make that happen? If you could be any superhero, which one would you be and why? What would you do with your powers?
Boundaries and expectations:
Positive Values: Was there ever a time when you had to stand up for something you believed in even when you friends weren’t behind you 100%? What was it, and what did you learn from the experience? Is it ever ok to lie? When?
Social Competencies: Which has more impact: giving money to charities or giving time to charities? Is it easier to be a boy or a girl? Why?
Are the rules you have at school/home fair? Which rules would you change and why? How does trust get broken? Can trust be repaired?
Constructive use of time: What is the silliest thing you’ve ever done in public? Good artists say they learned to be excellent by spending time practicing. Describe a time where practice paid off for you.
Positive identity: What are you most proud of? Name 3 things that made you smile today?
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ContaCt us: Y WA LAS ICHO ST N
T ES W
ST NICHOLAS SHOPPING CENTRE
ST
H ST HIG
PL REE CH T BEE
RD LAS ICHO ST N
GIBSON RD
HILL RD
Mentoring and Peer Support Sutton Sutton Volunteer Centre 31 West St Sutton Surrey SM1 15J T: 020 8770 4856
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Volunteer Centre Sutton is the operational name of Sutton Borough Volunteer Bureau. Registered as Sutton Borough Volunteer Bureau Charity No. 1048978 Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England and Wales No. 3088644