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Mentoring Scotland's young people

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Mentoring Scotland’s young people

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intandem to expand mentoring programme to support children and young people living in kinship arrangements

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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.”

intandem expand their team and help map mentoring to Keep the Promise

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As part of our ongoing commitment to amplifying the voices of children and young people, intandem are taking action to Keep the Promise of the Independent Care Review.

After a successful application to The Promise Partnership, we secured investment to recruit a Programme Development Intern to support the national mentoring programme, and are delighted to announce that Josh Hurd has joined us in this new role.

Josh will play a crucial role within the fund over the next year, helping to embed the voice of young people within intandem’s mentoring programme.

Upon joining the fund, Josh said:

“I enjoy working as a team and learning new things. I am a very enthusiastic person who loves spending time with people. I enjoy down time with family and friends and like being in people’s company.

I’m excited to meet everyone in the team and can’t wait to started. Family and friends are the most Important to me, as we build each other’s confidence up and help each other to overcome the bad times.”

Debbie Zima, performance advisor for intandem, added:

“We are delighted to have Josh join intandem. He brings experience of working alongside young people in sports coaching and most importantly has an infectious drive to get the views and ideas of young people at the front of all our minds, which will ensure intandem develops with their voice at its heart.”

In addition to welcoming Josh to the team, intandem have been working with the Scottish Mentoring Network and YMCA Scotland to map mentoring provision for care experienced children and young people in Scotland. The goal is to identify gaps in mentoring provision by mapping an accurate picture of where and how care experienced children and young people can currently access mentoring services.

Scottish Mentoring Network have launched a nationwide survey to enable mentoring services to contribute to the mapping exercise. Responses will help SMN and partners to better understand the current mentoring landscape and will allow them to make informed recommendations about how to improve access to mentoring services for all care-experienced children and young people.

Sarah Barr, Scottish Mentoring Network’s project lead for the mapping project, said:

“We are really excited to have been awarded funding to enable us undertake this vital piece of work. We know the positive impact that the mentoring services we work with have on the lives of Scotland’s young people and by contributing to this project you will be helping to ensure these opportunities are equally available across the country”.

Susie White, intandem performance advisor, added:

“Mapping mentoring provision will provide a clear picture of the current support available across Scotland. By working together to understand what mentoring services are available and where, we can build better connections across the sector to complement each other’s work and, most importantly, ensure young people get the support they want and need at the right time.”

Celia Tennant thanks intandem charities and volunteers.

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Inspiring Scotland recently commissioned Blake Stevenson to carry out an Independent Evaluation of intandem. Established to support children and young people who are looked after at home, intandem provides them with a mentor they meet once a week, with whom they can have a positive and trusting relationship free from some of the pressures that life has thrown at them.

I am pleased to say that the report is overwhelmingly positive. It is clear that intandem is making a real difference to children and young people who are looked after at home by boosting their confidence, self-esteem, helping to re-engage them with education and getting them out and about in the community.

The feedback from children and young people, their families, and our volunteer mentors is excellent and demonstrates how important it is for all young people to have a strong and positive adult relationship.

53% of young people (mentees) said that their confidence had increased, 62% said that their self-esteem had improved, and 64% said that they had made more friends thanks to mentoring. J, one of the children who has had an intandem mentor since October 2017 said: “Instead of having something heavy on ma shoulders, ah can talk to someone about it”.

And the programme is proving beneficial for volunteers, too. 61% said mentoring gave them a sense of achievement, and 71% say they’ve learned new skills – skills that will prove invaluable for their career development. One mentor said: “mentoring has been amazing and helped me get the job I am in now”.

The evaluation also highlights the benefits for charities of our portfolio approach. The charities we support in intandem have been able to learn from our team and one another and have invested their learning to improve and increase the capacity of the services they offer to children, young people and families.

Looking forward, we’re keen to see intandem evolve and develop, thereby improving the lives of even more children looked after at home. Blake Stevenson has provided valuable feedback, and part of that feedback includes recommendations for how to improve the service in future, such as expanding the programme to children and young people in kinship care and extending intandem into new geographical areas. These are things for us to keep in mind, and I hope that soon we will be able to deliver on those recommendations.

For now, we are delighted to have proof of the difference intandem is making to the lives of children and young people looked after at home. The hard work and dedication of our partner charities, and especially the volunteer mentors who give up their time to support a young person, is really changing lives for the better. For all your unwavering commitment, I extend my appreciation and gratitude.

Celia.