News

This volunteer week gives us a platform to shine a spotlight on the huge impact that intandem’s volunteer mentors make. On behalf of our partner charities, we’d like to thank all of our volunteer mentors for their commitment to supporting children and young people. Without you Intandem wouldn’t be possible.

By bringing together young people and supportive volunteers, intandem enables children and young people to bring about positive change in their lives. Since we began in 2017, we have made nearly 500 matches with the average mentoring relationship lasting 17 months. It’s this commitment to a long-term relationship that sets our volunteers apart and really makes a difference to the young people they support.

Like with Kyle:

Kyle and his mentor were matched three years ago and regularly met, until the pandemic moved their meet-ups remotely. Kyle had a history of issues with school and eventually stopped going. Struggling with motivation, Kyle was spending his days sleeping and his nights playing computer games. He wanted to change this and with his mentor Michelle’s continued her support, meeting every week and helping him develop a stronger routine, Kyle has got his motivation back. Kyle’s now 16 years old and working a full-time job with a landscaping company – saying he really enjoys both the routine and the independence of making his own money.

But for every success story there are still more children and young people looked after and at home who could benefit from the support of a trusted mentor. Over 550 young people have been referred to intandem, across 19 local authority areas in Scotland.

Find out more about how you could become an intandem mentor and make a difference to both your life and the life of young person where you live.

We’re delighted to share our 2020/2021 report, which showcases the impact of intandem during an incredibly difficult year for everyone.

With anxiety, loneliness and isolation at an all-time high during the pandemic, we knew it was more important than ever to ensure mentoring relationships could continue.

Therefore, despite the challenges, intandem volunteer mentors, coordinators and partner charities adapted quickly to Covid-19 restrictions, ensuring that the trusting, community based mentoring relationships continued.

We listened to young people and their families, and mentoring was tailored to respond to each young person’s wishes. Communications between mentors and mentees were conducted virtually, or in person with social distancing, where restrictions allowed. Volunteer mentors embraced remote mentoring as a means of keeping in touch with their young mentees. Partner charities sprang into action to implement new working measures, and coordinators stepped in to support volunteers and families when times were difficult.

Our 2020/2021 report highlights the incredible dedication of our mentors and resilience of our young people during this difficult year. The stories of intandem mentees in the report bring to life the true impact of mentoring on intandem’s young people, many of whom have overcome challenges to achieve incredible outcomes. Feedback from parents and guardians show the extent to which mentoring relationships can positively influence not just young people, but their home lives and families, too.

We are incredibly proud of the impact intandem has made in 2020/2021, and are hugely grateful to our partner charities, volunteers and funders, who make our work possible.

As we focus on the future, we look forward to continuing to build towards our vision: that all young people who are in care or on the edge of care will have the confidence and resilience to succeed in life.

Mentoring adapts and continues

We have been so impressed with the flexibility, creativity, and resilience of our intandem volunteer mentors, young people and charities over the past six months.

After adapting quickly to weekly video or telephone calls, our young people, volunteers and coordinators have come up with lots of creative ways to continue relationships despite not being able to meet face to face.  Art and nature projects, dance moves, darts and treasure hunts have all featured. A huge proportion of our matches have successfully transitioned to meeting virtually to listen, share experiences, and try new activities and challenges each week.

The structure of a regular meet-up online has also helped our volunteers to stay motivated and connected during often difficult times.  Activity packs, fun competitions and pamper boxes have provided a welcome boost and when needed, more frequent contact by video or phone or post has made things more bearable. It has been challenging time for everyone, but from our survey of young people we know that having someone to talk to out with their immediate household has been a positive, practical help.

We continue to adapt intandem mentoring to enable young people to set new goals and achieve their potential.  If you would like to speak to an intandem coordinator about volunteering or being mentored, details of our 12 partners and their locations are listed below:

If you have any questions about the national programme then please contact Susie or Debbie on 07860 272 261 or 07860 272 256. Email susie@inspiringscotland.org.uk or debbiez@inspiringscotland.org.uk