Mentoring
What is Mentoring?
- Somebody just for me –
Volunteer mentors are long term champions in a young person’s life, they support young people to flourish and be the best versions of themselves.
Our mentoring service is a tailored 1:1 offer to a young person, providing practical and emotional support for a minimum of 2 years.
The support is led by the young person and most of our mentoring relationships turn into long term friendships. Everyone needs someone in their corner, mentors very quickly become a valued and consistent champion and or friend in the young persons life
Volunteer mentors are recruited from the community and extensively trained over a 10 week period. They provide practical and emotional support around a range of issues faced by young people, are a friendly ally to turn to in times of need and someone to share your good news with . Using a relationship based approach mentors are also joined together in peer support groups forming a pool of local knowledge, skills and experience. Young people also support the mentor to be the best version of themselves, many of our volunteers share how life changing the experience has been for them
How to Become A Mentor
We are looking for people who have at least 2-3 hours a week to dedicate to a young person for a minimum of two years. If you are kind, non-judgemental and can spare some of your time to improve someone else’s life then please take the first step by getting in contact info@pure-insight.org.uk (please state which area you live closest to)
You will be called by a member of the team who will talk you through what mentoring involves and link you to the correct project
You will then be invited to an information evening where you get the chance to hear from the team and existing volunteers to decide if this is the right opportunity for you. Next is a 10 week training programme, one evening a week where you will learn about what it’s like to grow up in care, how to be a mentor, what skills and qualities you can bring to the relationship. We describe our training as experiential with many volunteers stating they know more about themselves after completing the training
You will also be required to complete a DBS check and provide 2 references stating your suitability to work with young people
After successful completion of the training you will be carefully matched to a young person from your local community. We provide lots of support for your relationship to flourish with many turning into long term friendships. You will also feel supported by our existing network of volunteers, we have a range of talents and experiences to share with each other so you will certainly feel part of something bigger if this is what you are looking for. We refer to this network as the Pure Insight Family, everyone mucks in to support each other.
You will receive ongoing support and supervision for the 2 years you are on the programme, after that its left to you and the young person to decide if you would like to continue to see each other on terms that suit you both.