Schools miss out
often on valuable
opportunities simply
because they were
unaware of them
or were last to
shout. The work
on the ground is
more complex and
confusing than it
ever has been in our
20 years of working
in the field.
to assist young people to make strategic choices about their education and future career, as well as provide the support they need to get back on track in the event of setbacks and disappointments. Above all, schools, parents and wider partners need to respect and value pupils’ increasing capacity for leadership throughout the school years, giving them space to exercise their growing sense of autonomy and independence.
Finally, beyond the formal support of schools and other professionals, and the personal support of families, young people can benefit from the input of a different kind of community resource through programmes of mentoring. As young people have told us, they value the different types of experience and advice that community organisations. A wide range of local actors – whether those involved in local businesses, charities or voluntary groups – should therefore be encouraged to play an active role in promoting learning and education as mentors. The Raising the Bar Inquiry has already created some momentum, helping to attract pupils to BT’s online mentoring scheme. There may also be hidden opportunities for mentoring relationships in the county (for instance, ‘sole trader’ businesses who may lack capacity to take a full work placement; or second home owners with useful contacts and networks who wish to support young people in Suffolk).
As part of this inquiry, the Mentoring Solutions Group has considered how to develop a coherent, targeted approach to mentoring for all age groups across the whole county. As a first step towards strengthening and coordinating the plethora of mentoring schemes, it has proposed a categorisation exercise to map the different types and purposes of mentoring. These could then be hosted on a platform, where students and schools can easily see what provision is available, making use of the platform for employer engagement. We welcome the proposal to adopt the following model used by the Australian Youth Mentoring Network (whilst recognising that these categories will inevitably, and usefully, overlap).
Focus areas Mentoring to assist young people to:
Social and emotional well-being
Increase their self-esteem, self-efficacy and resilience by actively supporting their social and emotional well-being. The focus includes improving both the young person’s life skills and the positive connections they have with their community.
Individual talents and leadership
Further develop their individual talents and/or leadership skills in a specific area (eg sports, photography, drama) in order for them to reach their full potential.
Identity, culture and faith Grow in their understanding of their faith/culture and cultural identity. The programme actively supports young people to be proud and confident of their identity and culture and to be able to exercise this in their community.
Youth justice and crime prevention
Avoid anti-social and offending behaviours by encouraging connectedness with positive elements in their community and increasing protective factors.
Education and employment
Positively engage in and maintain their participation in education, training and employment. These programmes assist young people to develop a vision for their future and provide support to achieve their education, training and career goals.
We are keen to
see mentoring
and work-related
learning provision
expanded in the
county, some
sort of common
framework and
common evaluation
to measure impact
alongside a
longitudinal study.
EmployerBuilding on these useful first steps, we believe that the most important principle for any mentoring scheme is for the potential beneficiaries of such a scheme – the young people concerned – to be in the driving seat of designing and developing what it entails. With appropriate advice and support (preferably with young people determining what advice would be most useful for them), and guided by the evidence gathered by the Solutions Group on the key factors for effective mentoring,117 young
people should be tasked with mapping different types of mentoring and consulting with their peers to identify what would be most attractive and useful. What is more, rather than adopting a traditional model of school or local authority as commissioner, students themselves should assume the role of commissioner, holding a (delegated) budget. In this way, the process could be genuinely empowering, giving young people control over resources to ensure that the types of mentoring available meet their needs.
R18: Empower young people to design and commission an effective cross-county approach to mentoring
To develop young people’s capacity for leadership and provide a valuable resource for other young people across the county, a group of young people in Suffolk, probably based in post-16 colleges, should be charged with designing a cross-county approach to mentoring. The work carried out by students should be accredited, possibly as part of a BTEC module, or an Extended Project Qualification. The approach should be informed both by evidence about current provision, and also by the views of their peers and other pupils. If possible, the mentoring programme should connect with the employer-engagement mechanisms described above.