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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On Wednesday 28th September 2016, Move On and Scottish Mentoring Network are co-hosting a seminar on 'Sharing Good Practice'. The seminar will take place at Out of the Blue in Edinburgh from 10:00am until 12:30pm followed by a networking lunch.
The event is aimed at mentoring practioners (co-ordinators, managers. volunteers) and anyone with an interest in improving mentoring services in Scotland.
This event is free to attend and will showcase the findings from an independent evaluation of Move On's mentoring services, including strengths identified, areas for improvement and recommendations.
The authors of the evaluation, Edinburgh University's Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, will present at the event as will a representative from Scottish Mentoring Network, a Move On mentor and a member of Move On's mentoring staff team.
Spaces at this event are limited and places can be reserved by contacting Liz at Move on on 0131 558 3740 or by emailing liz@moveon.org.uk 25 August
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Inspiring Scotland launched intandem on 28 July at an event hosted by the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney. Speakers were the Deputy First Minister; Celia Tennant, CEO of Inspiring Scotland; Dr Susan Elsley, independent writer and researcher; and James, a young person who has experience of being looked after at home and being mentored.
Register your interest
The application process is now open and will run until midnight on Friday 9 September. Potential applicants are now invited to register their interest with Inspiring Scotland. Although not mandatory, the purpose of registering is to offer those considering applying an opportunity for a discussion about their proposed service with one of the intandem team. This will be on offer to those registering before Friday 2 September. To register your interest please click here.
The closing date for applications is Friday 9 September 2016 and further information is available for the Inspiring Scotland website. 24 August
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MCR Pathways and Glasgow City Council have signed an exciting new Public and Social Partnerships (PSP) agreement which will build on MCR's previous work to change the lives of Glasgow's disadvantages youths and secure the scheme's long-term future in a bid to help thousands more young people. The partnership also includes The Robertson Trust, the Life Changes Trust and STV Children's Appeal.
£4 million funding has been secured and the programme will be rolled out to all of the city's 30 secondary schools over the next three years. After this time the Education Authority will take on the programme with mentoring for care experienced young people across Glasgow becoming the norm.
It has been a long held objective of MCR to bring mentoring and talent tasters to the core of the education system and this new PSP will help achieve this. Through this exciting new PSP, MCR its partners will work to raise attainment, aspirations and positivie destinations of thousands of Glasgow's young people. 24 August
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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:
- Aberdeen YMCA Plusone Mentoring: is a youth work charity that is committed to creating opportunities to empower children, young people, families and communities in body, mind and spirit. The Plusone programme provides early intervention to vulnerable young people aged between 8 and 14 years old through one to one mentoring that is youth work and activity based.
- Growbiz Perthshire: is a community-based enterprise support service covering Eastern and Highland Perthshire which provides support to anyone thinking of becoming self-employed, or starting (or growing) a small business or social enterprise. GrowBiz has provided an ongoing enterprise mentor support programme since 2014, matching mentors and mentees from within the GrowBiz Enterprise network.
- LinkLiving SmartLiving: has two projects that operate in Falkirk, Fife and Edinburgh, StepOn and Step Up. StepOn is a programme which helps young people to identify their goals and aspirations for the future and supports them to achieve these by accessing relevant training, volunteering opportunities, future education or Employment. Step Up is a 12-week Employability course for young people in Falkirk and Fife which gives young people the opportunity to develop their confidence, self-esteem and employability skills as well as gaining valuable work experience and gaining an SQA accreditation.
- Phoenix Futures: has worked with individuals, families and communities for more than 40 years to show that recovery from substance misuse is possible. Phoenix Futures operates a peer mentoring service where volunteer peer mentors with experience (directly or indirectly) of recovery support people who are at the early stages of their recovery to integrate back into community to help them to sustain their recovery and build a full and meaningful life in the community.
- Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI): works to improve communication between deaf and hearing people whilst raising awareness of British Sign Language (BSL) /English interpreting service across Scotland. SASLI is working to establish a formal mentoring programme for its members.
- Tollcross YMCA: run two mentoring projects, Plusone Mentoring and Youthworks Mentoring. Plusone supports 8-14 year olds who are at risk of becoming involved in offending behaviour, currently supporting 20 young people each year in the Tollcross area. Youthwork Mentoring is a support programme for young people aged 16-25 engaged in short-term employment training programmes.
23 August
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Training Zone has published an article highlighting the pitfalls that anyone should consider before setting up a mentoring scheme. Although the article focuses on mentoring in an organisational setting, the insights offered are applicable in most mentoring projects.
The five pitfalls highlighted are:
- A lack of transparency in communication
- A lack of dedicated resources, including budget
- A lack of clarity in aims and objectives
- A lack of staff / participant willingness
- A lack of leadership support
The article suggests that before setting up a new mentoring project or scheme you should check whether each of the five pitfalls exist in your context and address these before proceeding further.
The full article, with more detail on each pitfall, can be accessed here and link to this has been added to the resources section of the SMN website also. 15 August
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BBC Children in Need is calling on Scottish charities to apply for its Main and Small Grant programmes. Charities which help disadvantaged children and young people are asked to apply for a grant on the BBC Children in Need website.
The Main Grants Programme is open to charities and not-for-profit organisations applying for grants over £10,000 per year for up to three years and the Small Grants Programme is for charities and not-for-profit organisations applying for any amount up to and including £10,000 for one year only.
Grants are awarded for:
- Illness, distress, abuse or neglect
- Any kind of disability
- Behavioural or psychological difficulties
- Living in poverty or situations of deprivation
Projects funded make differences in children’s lives that help prevent or overcome the effects of the disadvantages they face. Projects achieve these differences by either working directly with children or seeking to improve their social and physical environments.
The first application deadline date for the Main Grants programme is 15 September 2016 and the Small Grants programme deadline is 1 September 2016. 5 August
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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.
The Scottish Government and most funders want to be able to see evidence of the difference (impact) mentoring support actually makes.
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. We therefore encourage as many projects as possible to participate and, if you have a current or recent external evaluation of your project please forward it to us. The latest issue of our 'Mentoring Works' report is available to download from the resources section of the SMN website.
This year we want to gather even more evidence which we will collate and publish. This will be used by SMN to promote the effective use of mentoring in Scotland to policy makers and funders and will therefore be a direct benefit to members.
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 August
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Events28 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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