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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.

An award of £450,000 from The Robertson Trust will enable intandem, the national mentoring programme for children and young people looked after at home, to expand to  include 8-14 year olds living in kinship care arrangements across Scotland.

intandem recognises that young people looked after while living at home can experience challenging circumstances. There is a range of evidence, including research funded by The Robertson Trust, that shows how mentoring can help to support work to narrow the attainment gap in school, and to improve engagement in education and more broadly. This three-year award will expand the number of children and young people mentored each week and begin to address the current gap in support for children living in kinship care arrangements.

Inspiring Scotland is the strategic delivery partner for intandem. This collaboration with The Robertson Trust reflects both organisations’ dedication to support the commitment made in The Promise to help children, young people and their families build and maintain positive long-term relationships and to support them when life is under strain.

Celia Tennant Chief Executive of Inspiring Scotland commented: 

“For over five years we have worked with the Scottish Government as their strategic delivery partner and 12 outstanding charity partners to establish intandem and champion it as an effective model in supporting children, young people and families during turbulent times in their lives.

We’ve listened and sought to understand how intandem could be more effective and make a bigger difference. This expansion has been realised and informed by conversations with young people and their families, partner charities, social workers, and others across the sector to fill a current gap in mentoring support.

 We are delighted that with this support from The Robertson Trust, we can help Scotland keep its promise to all care-experienced children, young people, and their families so that every child grows up loved, safe and respected, able to realise their full potential.”

Commenting on the award, Jim McCormick, Chief Executive of The Robertson Trust said:

“We are delighted to be able to fund intandem and to help extend their vital work to children living in kinship care arrangements.

 Our ten-year strategy focuses on tackling poverty and trauma. We know that a good education experience is one of the best protections against poverty but there continues to be a pervasive poverty-related attainment gap in Scotland. Children with experience of care and kinship care arrangements can benefit hugely from mentoring to build confidence and connection, in turn supporting their engagement with education.

This funding is one of the first of The Robertson Trust’s new proactive programme awards. We look forward to learning alongside Inspiring Scotland and intandem’s partner organisations through this award.”

Inspiring Scotland’s Head of Development and Partnership, Julia Abel, reflects upon the impact of intandem mentoring as the programme celebrates its fifth birthday.

We all need consistent, trusting relationships. For young people who have care experience, these relationships can sometimes be lacking. The long-term presence of a trusted, supportive adult can make all the difference to the trajectory of their lives.

We’re celebrating five years of intandem, Scotland’s national mentoring programme. Funded by the Scottish Government and delivered by Inspiring Scotland, the programme connects young people and volunteer mentors to establish meaningful, supportive and long-lasting relationships.

Since 2016, intandem has supported young people who are looked after at home on a Compulsory Supervision Order (CSO). While being in care is often linked to social disadvantage, children and young people looked after at home have the poorest outcomes of all young people in Scotland, through no fault of their own. intandem supports these young people to develop positive relationships with a trusted adult role-model. Weekly mentoring provides space for these relationships to flourish.

intandem is a community-based mentoring programme, with meetings taking place outside of the school environment. Over the last five years, intandem has trained 733 volunteers and coordinated 450 matches. With over 3,500 children and young people in Scotland currently living at home under a CSO, it is vital that we continue to invest in them with mentoring support, so these children don’t fall through the cracks.

We know intandem works. The average match lasts 17 months, providing young people with stability and long-term support. Mentored young people consistently report a range of positive outcomes, including increased self-esteem (62%), increased community engagement (64%) and improved friendships (64%).  With Covid-19 prompting an increase in feelings of anxiety and isolation, it’s more crucial than ever that all young people have the opportunity to form meaningful relationships.

With intandem, inspiring Scotland is committed to helping Scotland #KeepThePromise, a pledge to embed the voices of care-experienced young people when making decisions about the Scottish care system. As part of this commitment, intandem facilitates a Young Person’s Forum, where care-experienced young people can speak on the issues closest to them. intandem staff are also currently working with a care-experienced individual, to help shape the work of intandem as we look to the future.

intandem is made possible by the commitment of its funder, Scottish Government. It also depends on the dedication of volunteers and the commitment of the programme’s twelve charity partners, who work tirelessly to coordinate matches across Scotland. These charities are committed to matching more young people with mentors, to ensure every young person has the opportunity to thrive.

intandem has a bold and ambitious vision – that Scotland’s children, young people and families can stay together to build and maintain positive, loving relationships. intandem is currently embedded in 19 Local Authorities and aspires to expand even further. By continuing to grow, intandem can help Scotland #KeepThePromise to all care-experienced infants, children, young people, adults and their families – that every child grows up loved, safe and respected, able to realise their full potential.