Grandmentors

Mon, Sep 17th 2018 at 12:13 pm - 1:13 pm

Mentoring youngsters who have left care but are not in education, employment or training


Grandmentors

Grandmentors is a voluntary project in which people over 50 mentor young care leavers who may face challenging circumstances.  At a recent meeting of the Rotary Club of South Foreland, members heard about the work of the project from Lord David Freud who conceived the idea eleven years ago when musing in his bath.  He wondered whether the supportive and non-judgemental relationship he had with his grandfather could be replicated with youngsters in need of support after leaving care.  Encouraged by the charity Voluntary Matters he set up a partnership between them and his family, establishing the project in Islington; by the end of the year it will have been extended to a further nine locations, including Dover.

Grandmentoring has been extremely successful compared with other mentoring projects and is valued by Local Authorities, who provide 50% of the funding.  A measure of effectiveness is that once youngsters are teamed up with a mentor the number not in education, employment and training falls from 50% to 5%.  Much has been learnt as the project has developed.  The first problem was actually finding the youngsters; this was achieved by contacting them before they left care.  Another problem was gaining their trust: having a volunteer embedded with the social work team, giving youngsters the choice of having a mentor, and who that mentor would be, helped with this.  It was also important that mentors were unpaid and helping because they wanted to.

Mentors are not specially trained in counselling or guidance but offer support based on their own experience and can act as role models.  They need to have a genuine interest in helping this group of neglected youngsters.  Basic training is given to mentors who meet their young person on a regular basis for a minimum of one year.  One issue yet to be resolved by the project is how to end the process of mentoring effectively.

Rachel Gainsford, Volunteer Manager at Dover, also gave local information to members and can be contacted at: Rachel.gainsford@volunteeringmatters.org.uk

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