Youth Mentoring

Big Brothers Big Sisters is the longest-running mentoring programme in the world and has evolved significantly over its lifetime. It has developed a successful approach with clear guidelines and boundaries which ensure a consistent and safe mentoring experience for both the young person and the mentor.

An adult is matched with a young person of the same gender and with similar interests in a supervised relationship.

Some of the key features of the programme are:

• Professional case management
  All matches are managed by a qualified supervisor such as a social worker. This is a key feature of the programme which allows any issues to be identified early and managed independently of the match relationship.

• The mentor focuses on the young person
  In some cases, the home the young person comes from has issues the mentor could be drawn into. However, this is far from helpful. To realise the best outcome for the young person, the mentor should be solely focused on their needs and aim to provide some time away from the home environment, without any tentacles from home reaching into their relationship. It is the role of the case manager to manage any issues at the young person's home or in their broader life.

• The match relationship is a social one
  The goal is to have fun! The mentors are not asked to do anything difficult or challenging, they are just asked to do simple and fun things that they and their young person would like to do. This could be cooking, walking the dog, watching a movie, building water-propelled rockets through to building boats and home designed e-bikes!

• Match duration
  Research has shown that matches need to be at least twelve months in duration before long term benefits for the young person are realised. The Big Brothers Big Sisters programme starts the matches at a young age (mine started at between 8 and 11 yrs old) to provide the best chance of a long term relationship.

• Clear rules and guidelines
  The rules and guidelines cover a broad range of areas such as alcohol consumption, overnight stays, gifts and travel. The rules make it much easier for the mentor to stay safe and keep their young person safe.