Newsletter
Catch up on this month's activity on the Scottish Mentoring Network website. Click the headlines to read more...
Latest News
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ProjectScotland is recruiting volunteer mentors willing to give one hour of their time a week to help a young person to achieve their goals and ambitions.
ProjectScotland work with hundreds of young people aged 16-30 every year. Each young person spends 3 months volunteering with a local charity, giving their time in return for skills development, and experience. Each volunteer is offered a mentor to help them get the most from their volunteering experience.
Mentors are not a line manager or another person the volunteer has to impress, instead the mentor will be someone who is completely on their side to support, encourage, listen to and guide them. Mentors will help their mentee to reflect on their volunteering, enabling them to turn up the volume on their skills and resources, which in turn will help them work out what they want to do in the future. The support a mentor can offer is invaluable, from providing CV advice, interview preparation, to goal setting, and confidence building.
Mentors are asked to give on hour of their time every week for a minimum of one year and how that hour is spent will depend on the support the mentee wants and will evolve as the mentoring relationship develops. 24 February
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Over the past few months we have welcomed a number of new projects to our membership. Our newest members are working under various themes and all have a profile on our website where you can find out more about their work in mentoring. We encourage anyone interested in these projects to utilise our ‘Mentoring Map’ to find out a bit more about these member projects; the details of the lead contact for any mentoring activities within a project is shown on each individual profile.
Our newest members are:
- Barnardo's South Ayrshire Peer Mentoring Service: The service offers support to care experienced young people aged 14-24 years living in South Ayrshire. Support offered includes weekly 1:1 mentoring support and group work support to enable young people to develop self-confidence and relevant life skills in areas including education, training and employment. The service aims to support young people in positive and creative ways to live fulfilling and productive lives.
- Disabled Persons Housing Service (Fife): The principal function of the service is to provide specialist housing advice for people with disabilities. A new project has recently been established within the service (funded through the Scottish Government) which aims to offer specialist support to people who are about to go through the self-directed support (SDS) journey for the first time. The service has a self-directed support Options Worker and Volunteer Coordinator who offer advice and guidance and volunteers, who have already been through the SDS process, are recruited from amongst the existing service users to act as mentors / peer support to clients that are new to the SDS process.
- LifeLink: Lifelink is a social enterprise with a focus for providing a service which can intervene early, help individuals to manage their own stress and improve overall mental health. Services are provided within a supportive and accessible therapeutic environment, particularly (but not exclusively) in areas of high deprivation and for people and communities most affected by health inequalities. Lifelink currently offers one-to-one mentoring in the North West and South of Glasgow, acting as the current provider for the MIDAS mentoring contract for North West schools.
- Up-2-Us: Up-2-Us provides Accommodation, Care and Housing Support Services to vulnerable and high risk children and young people in the care and justice systems. The service has recently received funding from the Life Changes Trust to provide Peer Mentoring / Lived experience for looked after and accommodated young people.
For more information and contact details for our newest members please visit our ‘Mentoring Map’. 23 February
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Befriend a Child, in partnership with MCR Pathways Foundation, is launching an exciting new mentoring in education programme.
Befriend a Child will use MCR Pathways' approach to work with children aged 13-18 who have previously been befriended or have been identified as being at risk of exclusion from school. Through the programme young people will be helped to re-engage and supported on a pathway into further education, university or vocational training.
A pilot programme has been launched in Inverurie and Peterhead Academies where it was identified that there were a number of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people at a high risk of exclusion from school. The two schools selected were determined by two key factors - income and identified need.
Although the pilot has focussed on schools in Inverurie and Peterhead, a need has been identified across Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen to provide support for children and young people at risk of exclusion as a result of a number of impact factors including parental and their own drug and alcohol misuse, domestic violence, mental ill-health, abuse and neglect.
As part of the pilot programme, Befriend a Child is recruiting five mentors for each of the two academies, with each mentor being asked to commit to meeting a young person for at least one hour every week for a minimum of one year. Meetings between the mentor and mentee will take place either within the school environment or in a local community space between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday, including school holidays. 22 February
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Up-2-Us have recently received funding from the Life Changes Trust to provide Peer Mentoring support for looked after and accommodated young people and are now recruiting for volunteer peer mentors.
The new service is recruiting volunteer mentors who have had personal experience of Care or Children's Hearings and who now have time to give to a young person walking the same path.
Mentees will need one to one support from their mentor but there will also be a place for groups and fun activity. Mentors will be offered training, support and expenses will be covered.
For more information please contact Olive Arens on 01355 263 358 or Neil Jack on 07976 011 702 or visit the Up-2-Us website. 18 February
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This report presents the findings of an independent evaluation of the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund (RRCF) commissioned by Scottish Government with RRCF partners, The Robertson Trust and Scottish Prison Service.
This evaluation was undertaken by Ipsos MORI Scotland between September 2013 and November 2015. The aim of the evaluation was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the extent to which the PSP model delivers effective mentoring services that reduce the risk of reoffending and support reintegration. Scottish Mentoring Network was represented on the Research Advisory Group and supported some of the PSP's. 16 February
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Y Sort It launched its new 'Buddy Up' mentoring programme on Friday 19 February 2016 and is now recruiting care experienced volunteer peer mentors to work with young people who are currently in care in West Dunbartonshire.
Volunteer mentors will:
* Have care experience and be aged between 18 and 30;
* Have a connection to West Dunbartonshire, whether current or previous;
* Be able to build a relationship with a young person who is in care - 'in care' for this project means, looked after at home; looked after and accommodated; foster care and kinship care.
Y Sort it will provide mentors with:
* A 21 hour quality mentor induction
* High levels of support and training
* Accredited training will be offered
Volunteer peer mentors will be carefully matched with a young person taking the mentors opinions into account. Although the post is unpaid, expenses for travel and activities will be provided. 16 February
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The Safer Communities Awards celebrate, and showcase, the outstanding work being undertaken across Scotland to raise awareness and change behaviour in order to reduce risks to individuals. The Awards recognise and rewards excellent and innovative practice across the community safety sector in Scotland and are open to large, small, local and national projects. The categories for this year's awards are:
- Early Intervention and Education
- Innovative Media Campaign
- Strengthening Community Engagement and Resilience
- Wider Partnership In addition to being short-listed for a Safer Communities Award, projects could be entered in the People's Choice Award which has a £2,000 prize fund.
11 February
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MCR Pathways has announced a new three-year plan to expand its ground-breaking project, which helps disadvantaged young people to reach their potential in life, into every school in Glasgow.
More than 750 mentors have now joined the scheme which has attracted the support of institutions such as Glasgow Life, the University of Strathclyde, Wheatley Group, Santander, Glasgow Kelvin College, the SECC and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.
An announcement on MCR's expansion plan, named the The Young Glasgow Talent (YGT) campaign, was made at a civic reception in the City Chambers on Thursday 4 February 2016, which was attended by around 250 people who have already signed up to become mentors. The occasion was also marked with the unveiling of an artwork inspired by the programme and painted by one of Glasgow's world-class artists, Gerard Burns.
MCR founder Iain MacRitchie said:
"The descriptions of disadvantage and wasted potential are not what motivate or engage young people. Young Glasgow Talent has a focus on talent and the support to help young people find, grow and use theirs.
"We are driven to ensure that young people will be determined by their talent and not their circumstances. In travelling the world and working with many gifted people, I am inspired by the character, talent and resilience of Glasgow’s young people.
"We are bridge builders to connect talent with opportunity and ensure we mentor and support our young people to realise their full potential. YGT is how and why we do what we do. We have lots of it across the city and with mentoring and our talent tasters programme it will absolutely flourish."
MCR mentors work with children on a one to one basis and give them the benefit of their life experience. The idea is to steer vulnerable children into careers or further education which may have been blocked to them by their personal circumstances. The three-year year plan will target the recruitment of over 1000 mentors and other volunteers, and will be built on the success of an initial appeal backed by The Herald which attracted more than 750 people to register and become involved with MCR Pathways, Magnus Llewellin, Herald and Times Editor-in-Chief said: "We are proud to have played a role in the success of the MCR Pathways. The work being done is inspirational and will have a positive impact on the city and all involved for decades to come."
4 February
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The work of One Parent Families Scotland's (OPFS) Peer Led Mellow Parenting Programme has been highlighted in an article on the Scottish Government website.
Through delivering one to one and group work support services in North Lanarkshire, the programme has identified that targeted parenting programmes to support the most vulnerable parents is required to help improve outcomes for children in the early years.
OPFS has received over £1 million from the Scottish Government Third Sector Early Intervention Fund over the last three years and, has recently been awarded funding for a further three years - receiving £354,000 in 2016-17.
Peer led Mellow Parenting (MP) Programmes were developed to improve the parenting capacity of lone fathers and young parents and OPFS has received funding through the Early Years Change Fund to test this work in North Lanarkshire using Early Years Collaborative (EYC) Improvement Methodology.
The MP family of programmes has been developed to support parents and their children to build good relationships. The foundation of the programme is attachment theory with particular emphasis on the transmission of attachment and relationship styles over generations. This relationship based intervention promotes positive parent-child interaction and the strength of this programme is that it does not dictate how to parent but instead it aims to change parents' philosophy.
Peer Mentors
To enhance the MP programme a tailored package of support is provided by volunteer Peer Mentors to all families taking part, to address any issues or concerns quickly and encourage participation. Peer Mentors are lone fathers or young parents and act as positive role models. They co-deliver the programme alongside professional workers and their observations are an important aspect of measuring the impact on families. Since September 2014, four programmes have been delivered with eight to ten parents participating in each. Improvement, using EYC methodology, tests and measures the effectiveness of the programme:
* 79 per cent of parents felt a significant decrease in in overall stress levels
* 83 per cent of parents reported a decrease in intensity of daily hassle such as shopping with and dressing and feeding children
* 75 per cent of parents reported an increase in confidence when dealing with challenging situations.
* 79 per cent of parents have reported improved interactions with their children – such as reading and playing with them and in turn they feel better able to recognise and respond to their children’s feelings.
Peer and professional observations have also reported an increase in appropriate social behaviour and that children are more ready to take part in play and social activities within their home and in groups within their local community such as Bookbug and play groups. Parents have also reported that they are now less socially isolated. There has also been a significant increase in uptake of local services and relationships with Social work, Health, Addiction Services etc have improved. The programme has been extremely successful in allowing parents to share their life stories, address the root cause of their problem and seek the specialist support they need to move on in their lives. 3 February
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Our members have commonly reported that the main barriers to evaluation are a lack of time and resources. Therefore, along with Hall Aitken and their Indicate toolkit, we have devised the SMN Evaluation Framework which is an easy and quick way for our projects to gather valuable information that can be passed to Scottish Mentoring Network. All projects that take part in our national evaluation program will receive regular reports on the scope and impact of mentoring in their local area, thematic area and nationally. We are keen to gather as much data as possible from our member projects to allow us to present meaningful evaluation results, using our newly developed reporting format. The latest issue of our 'Mentoring Works' report is available to download from the resources section of the SMN website. The more data we receive from member projects the more in-depth reporting we can provide on the reach and variety of mentoring across Scotland. If you are able to contribute statistics on the numbers of mentors and mentees you are currently working with or any case studies or impact stories we would love to hear from you. You can submit any statistics you have via Survey Monkey here and any stories of change observed in your mentees here. 2 February
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EventsWednesday 17th & Thursday 18th February 2016, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 28 September 2016, Out of the Blue, 36 Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG | 27-28 October 2016, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 17 November 2016, The Trade's Hall, Glasgow | 08-09 February 2017, SCVO Training Room, Hayweight House, Edinburgh | 23 March 2017, Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue, 16 St Marys Street, EH1 1SU | 03-04 April 2017, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 22 June 2017, The Salutation Hotel, 34 South Street, Perth, PH2 8P | 9 August 2017, Edinburgh Napier (Sighthill Campus) | 13 September 2017, Ayrshire College, Kilmarnock Campus, Hill Street, Kilmarnock, KA1 3HY | 10 October 2017, ACOSVO, Thorn House, 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PR | 11-12 December 2017, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 31 January 2018, Dundee University, Dalhousie Building Block 1, ground floor room 6 (1G06) , 75 Old Hawkhill, Dundee DD1 5EN | 22 March 2018, AK Bell Library, Sandeman Room, 2-8 York Place, Perth. PH2 8EP | 27 March 2018, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness College, 1 Inverness Campus, IV2 5NA | 9 May 2018, Ayrshire College, Kilmarnock Campus, Hill Street, Kilmarnock, KA1 3HY | 23 May 2018, YMCA Edinburgh, The Acorn Centre, 1 Junction Place, EH6 5JA | 25 September 2018, DYW Perth & Kinross, Saltire House 3 Whitefriars Crescent, Perth PH2 0PA | 6 November 2018, St Paul's and St George's Church, Edinburgh | 28 January 2019, 10am - 1pm, 51 Wilson Street, Brunswick House, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 05-06 February 2019, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 28 February 2019, 11am -1pm , Centre Stage, Kilmarnock Academy, 15 Elmbank Drive, Kilmarnock, KA1 3BS. | 19 March 2019, 11am - 2pm, Financial Conduct Authority, Quayside House, 127 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, EH3 9QG | 22 May 2019, Link Academy, McKinven House, George Street, Falkirk, FK2 7EY | 28 May 2019, 10:30am -2:30pm Motherwell Concert Hall, Windmillhill St, Motherwell ML1 1AB | 12 June 2019, DC Thomson, 2 Albert Square, Dundee, DD1 1DD | 7 August 2019 | 27 August 2019, 10:30am - 1:30pm Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, 20 Dumbreck Rd, Glasgow, G41 5BW | 2 September 2019, 11am-2pm, Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue, 16 St Mary's St, Edinburgh EH1 1SU | 13 November 2019, St Paul's & St George's Church, 46 York Place, Edinburgh | 28 November 2019, 4th Floor, Hayweight House, 23 Lauriston Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9DQ | 4 December 2019, 11am-1:30pm YMCA Edinburgh, The Acorn Centre, 1 Junction Place, EH6 5JA | 24 January 2020, 10:30am- 2pm Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow,G11UZ | 29 January 2020, Old College Building, Abertay University, Dundee, DD1 HG | 5 March 2020, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 100 Renfrew St, Glasgow G2 3DB, 10:30am -2:pm | 19-20 March 2020, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow, G1 1UZ | 23 March 2020, The Barracks, Stirling | 27 March 2020, Brunswick House, 51 Wilson Street, Glasgow G1 1UZ | 20 May 2020, Online Zoom (11am-1pm) | 2 July 2020, Zoom | 12 August 2020, Zoom | 9 September 2020, Zoom | 30 September 2020, Zoom | 14 October 2020, Zoom | 11 November 2020, Zoom | 3 December 2020 | 8 December 2020, Zoom | 20 January 2021, Zoom | 3 February 2021, Zoom | 19 February 2021, Zoom | 18 March 2021, Zoom | 21 April 2021, Zoom | 20 May 2021, Zoom | 22 June 2021, Zoom | 25 August 2021, Zoom | 21 September 2021, Zoom | 27 October 2021, Zoom | 8 December 2021, Zoom | 26 January 2022, Zoom | 22 March 2022, Zoom | 19 May 2022, Zoom | 22 September 2022, Zoom | 27 October 2022, The Studio, 67 Hope Street, Glasgow, G2 6AE | 14 December 2022, Zoom | 19 January 2023, Zoom | 28 April 2023, Zoom | 30 June 2023, Zoom | 7 September 2023, Zoom | 25 October 2023, The Studio, Glasgow | 19 January 2024, Zoom | 26 March 2024, Zoom |
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