intandem News

Deputy First Minister to launch intandem

intandem, Scotland’s mentoring programme for young people looked after at home is being officially launched by John Swinney on 28th July.

Inspiring Scotland is leading the development of Scottish Government’s programme, initially for children and young people who are looked after at home.

About the Programme
intandem will initially support young people aged between 8-14 years who are looked after by their local authority and living at home. The programme recognises a young person’s need to have at least one long term relationship with a positive adult role-model. The disruption children face leading up to and on coming into the care system can make this difficult to achieve within a family setting.

Young people who choose to take part in the scheme will be carefully matched with a trained volunteer and together they will build a positive, trusting, supportive and secure relationship. Effective mentoring relationships have been shown to be long term, frequent and regular.

The quality of the programme will be critically important. For example, organisations which receive funding will be expected to have achieved or to work towards the attainment of either the Befriending Networks’ Quality in Befriending Award or the Scottish Mentoring Network’s Quality Award.

Funded organisations will receive on-going support from intandem and Inspiring Scotland across a range of issues, such as volunteer recruitment and training, and capacity building. They will also have the opportunity to take part in co-designing approaches to evaluation, and will be expected to take part in agreed evaluation and reporting processes, overseen by Inspiring Scotland.
Eligibility for Funding
OSCR registered organisations interested in applying for funding to support 8-14 year olds who are looked after at home will be encouraged to apply for funding through Inspiring Scotland later this summer. Organisations should consider now what new mentoring support they can offer this group.

Whilst the term mentoring is used to describe the programme because the relationship is intended to have a goal orientation, it is recognised that many organisations deliver this to children and young people within a befriending service.

Applications are therefore encouraged from voluntary organisations with experience of at least one of the following:

• Providing mentoring or befriending services
• Working with vulnerable or looked after children and young people
• Providing one to one support to individual children

Inspiring Scotland has been working with BOLD, Scotland’s only social enterprise advertising and branding agency to develop the logo and branding. The process was co-created with young people and representatives of organisations who mentor and befriend young people.