Current Activity

We are currently delivering a range of services to mentoring co-ordinators and mentors. These include: membership support, training, our Quality Standard, events and influencing with key stakeholders. As a membership organisation, our key focus is on supporting the work of our members in any way we can.

Core Funding   

Our Core Funding from the Scottish Government’s Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund (CYPFEIF), and our main objectives using this funding are:  

1. To increase the scale of mentoring in Scotland:  

This means increasing the number of young people who can benefit from mentoring, particularly those young people from vulnerable or disadvantaged backgrounds. 

2. To increase the quality of mentoring in Scotland:   

This means increasing the effectiveness of mentoring on the positive outcomes and in particular in terms of national outcomes and indicators.  

3. To increase awareness of the value of mentoring:  

This means improving access to mentoring.  This would involve increasing geographical access and embedding mentoring in wider support services and programmes which will improve outcomes for children, young people and families. 

We have been working with our members and partners to achieve these objectives.  Since we began working on these objectives, we have developed a range of services and products to support mentoring co-ordinators in their roles.   

  • Advice and guidance on a range of mentoring-associated issues including how to set up a mentoring programme. 
  • Free networking events to enable members to connect with each other.  
  • Dedicated support with developing your mentoring programme and training guidance support (our new Mentoring in Practice Service).   
  • An entry-level Mentoring Knowledge and Understanding self-paced course
  • Accredited training for Mentoring Co-ordinators and Mentors. 
  • SMN’s Project Quality Award successful completion of which will enable projects to demonstrate to funders and policy makers that they are operating to a nationally recognised high standard. Members are able to access SMN’s Good Practice Guide..
  • SMN’s annual good practice sharing conference for mentoring practitioners. 
  • The ability for projects to connect and share with each other through our networking events, or through the SMN Mentoring Map.
  • We have temporarily suspended our annual Recognition Awards until resources allow us to re-introduce them in a new format.     

#KeepThePromise  

We were awarded funding from the Scottish Government through The Promise Partnership in 2021.  The Promise Independent Care Review set out a vision for Scotland to ensure that care-experienced children and young people grow up loved, safe, and respected, able to realise their full potential.   

Our work with the Promise Partnership involved Scottish Mentoring Network working with YMCA Scotland and Inspiring Scotland to map out the mentoring provision for care-experienced children and young people.  Mapping the provision helps us to promote good standards of mentoring practice within these projects.  It also enables SMN to increase the ability to identify inequality in access to quality mentoring provision and allows us to recommend solutions.  

Wider Strategy and Member Engagement  

Our plan for 2023-24 focuses on the workstreams detailed on our Strategy page.    

We will be regularly promoting the work of our members and relevant opportunities for our members through our monthly newsletter and via our social media channels.  Members are encouraged to get in touch with Katya, our Marketing Communications and Support Lead if you have any news you would like to share.   

As always we welcome contributions, comments, and suggestions from members and partners and if you would like to make contact please either email us at info@scottishmentoringnetwork.co.uk or call 0739929606.