We match volunteer mentors to vulnerable young people aged 14-25 to support them to achieve goals and reach their full potential.

The young people we support are displaying “at risk” signs. These signs may include poor performance at school, truanting, offending, welfare issues, lack of positive social networks, anxiety or being bullied.

Mentors and young people meet once a week to work together as a pair towards a goal of the young person’s choice. Young people often choose recreation or leisure goals, such as learning to play guitar, boxing lessons or taking a cookery class.

The impact you can have

The role of a volunteer mentor is to provide a supportive relationship to help a young person achieve a realistic goal of their choice. The emphasis is to connect the young person with social, cultural and leisure opportunities, then support them to build their confidence, skills, potential and positive social networks.

Mentors also often support and assist the young person to maintain, re-engage with or seek out education, training and employment opportunities.

What being a mentor involves

We will provide extensive training before you are matched with a young person, so you feel completely ready for your new role.

After you have been matched with a young person, one of our team will take you both out a couple of times so you can get to know each other.

You will then meet up with the young person one-to-one for a couple of hours every week to work towards a goal of their choice.

We will arrange the activities for a day of the week and time that suits you and the young person best.

A rewarding opportunity

Mentoring is often as life-changing for mentors as it is for young person. Mentors regularly tell us that they feel more confident, less stressed and have a better sense of purpose in their life.

As well as a way to develop personally, our mentoring service is a unique opportunity to enhance your CV, with mentors improving their leadership and management skills, and many employers highly valuing volunteering.

Importantly our mentoring service is a great way to learn new skills and have fun – whether you’re learning to beatbox, putting on a magic show or trying your hand at arts and crafts!