Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation

Introduction

1. The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF) provides support to organisations involved in mentoring and befriending. As a national body and strategic partner of the Office of the Third Sector, MBF also works to influence policy and practice in the sector and across government.

2. The organisation is committed to promoting voluntary regulation of mentoring and befriending projects through the Approved Provider Standard, the national benchmark for safe and effective practice. MBF’s mission is to support the expansion of quality mentoring and befriending provision across all sectors.

3. Based on our ongoing mapping of mentoring and befriending activity we currently reach over 3,600 projects in the voluntary, education and statutory sector.

The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people

4. Mentoring provision plays a crucial role in providing targeted support for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable young people in society as well as providing a vehicle through which all young people can develop and reach their full potential. Services must ensure that young people in need of support receive a genuinely personalized package of support at the earliest possible opportunity.

5. Evidence shows that young people from poor backgrounds and communities who lack the circumstances through which they develop skills are at greater risk of under achieving . Those who do not have supportive family environments, who are struggling at school or who don’t participate regularly in constructive activities in their leisure time are also at risk. Growing up with a combination of these circumstances can for a minority of young people lead to disaffection and at the most extreme, becoming marginalized from society. (Aiming High for Young People: a ten year strategy for positive activities July 2007)

6. It is important that professionals provide support to young people before issues have escalated, and that when support is provided, agencies work in a coherent and coordinated way. Targeted services can work in partnership with universal settings to provide an early response to the needs of vulnerable young people, enabling them to draw in extra help if needed. It is crucial that people who run universal services know when and how to access additional support for young people. A joined up approach is definitely needed. Mentoring schemes that involve adults or peer mentors in a universal setting such as schools can also help with this joined up approach and play a key role in signposting young people to targeted services.

7. Accessing services can help to raise aspirations although it is often low aspirations that prevent young people from accessing services in the first place, and this highlights the need for services in universal settings. The role that youth provision can play works particularly well for disadvantaged young people; the support and motivation they receive from other adults as well as their peers by providing role models can help them form longer term plans. Young people need one to one support from someone who knows them well, who can help them set goals, help them to make choices and address the individual needs of the young person. School and community based after school programmes can promote learning, protect youth from negative pressures, and create opportunities for them to form relationships with caring, non parent adults. Young people in such programmes often describe them as safe havens from the pressures of the streets, places where adolescents feel comfortable expressing themselves.

8. Many universal and targeted services have well established mentoring/peer mentoring programmes already in place and have recognized the impact that they can have not only on the young person, but also on the mentor/peer mentor as well as the organization as a whole.

How services for young people can meet Government’s priorities for volunteering, including the role of National Citizen Service

9. The active involvement of young people as peer mentors fits well with the current Government agenda regarding the "Big Society" which includes a focus on "active citizenship". Peer mentoring provides an opportunity for young people to learn about and experience volunteering as part of their educational experience and personal development. This experience will help them gain social and interpersonal skills and will develop a culture of citizenship amongst younger generations. All young people need to be self confident, motivated and equipped with the skills they need to succeed in life. It is important to have an environment where young people can be valued for their achievements and the contributions they make to society.

10. The MBF welcomes the National Citizen Service where young people also have an opportunity to experience how they might develop the skills and attitudes they need to get more engaged with their communities and become active and responsive citizens and we await the outcomes from the current pilots with interest.

Which young people access services, what they want from those services and their role in shaping provision

11. A wide range of young people access youth services but a sample of mentoring and befriending projects we consulted mentioned the following as key groups engaging in mentoring and befriending activity: those who are socially or educationally excluded and at risk of offending or anti-social behaviour; those disengaging with education and potentially NEET or who have left school and are already NEET; vulnerable young people with low levels of self esteem and confidence; those lacking positive role models ; young people in care ; young refugees ; and those from low income families.

12. Our sample of projects contacted for this review identified the sort of things that young people state they want from mentoring and befriending services and these include: support, encouragement and guidance; signposting to other activities they might not otherwise have access to. Most want this support to come from a ‘non-official’ person they can relate to and who will spend time with them both listening and taking part in activities with them. The importance of this person being non-judgmental and respecting their confidences is also highlighted.

13. It is therefore important that youth provision caters for the needs of all young people and takes place in a safe environment.

14. In addition to the consultation above, in March 2010 MBF asked 85 young people about the importance of mentoring provision within both universal and targeted youth services. 88% of young people felt that they had gained a lot from a having a mentor/peer mentor and 80% of young people reported that they felt safer because of the mentoring programme in place. 50% of young people highlighted that they want to be made aware of the support that is on offer as soon as they start school or college and 50% of young people want mentoring schemes in both educational establishments as well in community settings. Children and young people stated that they would like more advertising of the youth services and support services that are available. They highlighted that is hard to find up to date, good quality, local, relevant and confidential information.

15. This survey found that young people felt their views are underrepresented and they have limited access to community based opportunities and activities. Some felt that they are viewed in a negative manner within their communities. By engaging young people in the decision making process it encourages them to take a more active role in their community. Volunteering and being involved in shaping provision reinforces a young person’s connection with and value in society and reduces disaffection and disengagement. It can improve academic achievement as well as help to prepare young people for the workplace.

16. The mentoring projects we consulted for this review told us about some of the ways that young people are involved in shaping their services. On an individual level, mentees are able to shape their own mentoring relationship as they decide on key goals and activities through discussion and review with their mentors at their regular meetings. Regular feedback through evaluation forms and other forms of consultation is also undertaken which feeds in to the overall planning and preparation of activities and programmes within the service.

17. Young people involved in these mentoring and befriending services are also involved on project steering groups or youth committees where they can put forward ideas to improve the service, develop policies and procedures, apply for funding to name a few. One project consulted has a ‘Mentor and Young Peoples Forum’ with access to an annual budget which they can spend on anything they want.

The relative roles of the voluntary; community, statutory and private sectors in providing services for young people

18. MBF believes there is an important role for all sectors in youth provision and that there is increasing need for them to work together if we are to provide better services for young people .

19. The voluntary and community sector (VCS) is acknowledged to have a significant current and future role in contributing to the provision of services for young people by policy makers. A healthy and active voluntary and community sector has significant benefits for society as a whole providing the social "glue" that keeps communities together and empowering them to have a choice.

20. Much of the work that voluntary and community sector organizations do is preventative and focused on early interventions to tackle problems.

21. MBF sees the most important role for local statutory authorities as providing a democratic ally accountab le overview of youth provision in communities and to ensur e that the needs of the total population are balanced. There are too many examples where young people have suffer ed from unfair discrimination when things have been left entirely to neighbourhood planning.

22. Increasingly, the voluntary and community sector (VCS) has been seen as an important partner in helping to shap e and deliver public services . Where local relationships between the VCS and the statutory sector have developed this has had a significant influence on the ability of the sector to grow, develop and do what it does best. By maintaining and strengthening a good working relationship with the VCS, the statutory sector can enhance the ability of VCS organisations to contribute to goals shared across all sectors.

23. However, the current climate, more emphasis is being placed on direct service provision and there is a danger that VCS will become under-funded and under-represented and that all of the good work that has been achieved will be lost. This is in spite of the increasing demands being placed on the local authority and other statutory organizations to consult and engage with local communities, and to bring about partnership working across many different levels of activity across boroughs.

24. The Coalition Government is looking to encourage greater philanthropy to increase everyone’s contribution to quality of life for all in society and so the role of the private sector is a new source of energy and resources which cannot be ignored. MBF is researching the potential for employee supported volunte ering in mentoring as part of businesses’ corporate social responsibility and how this can generate benefits for the community and businesses themselves. We are also looking at how appropriate quality measures, including MBF ’s Approved P rovider Standard, are applied to all providers from whatever sector.

25. Consequently there is a need for strong partnerships to recognize the valuable role played by all contributors to youth provision, whether from private, community, voluntary or statutory sectors, to ensure that provision is of high quality, safe and productive for young people, and that resources are made available to co-ordinate representation and enable groups to participate in partnerships and strategic decision–making.

The training and workforce development needs of the sector

26. All practitioners working with young people should be educated to be more aware of the risk factors affecting young people in today’s society, enabling them to have a greater understanding of what information and support there is available and how they can use these skills and information to positively support society.

27. The increasing range and specialization of VCS activities has brought with it a demand for people with particular skills and qualifications. At the same time pressures from increasing legislation and bureaucracy require many organizations to operate in a more professionalised manner. Voluntary and community organizations need skills, competent staff and/or volunteers to carry out the work of the sector. Individuals working for VCO’s will need access to high quality training to develop the skills needed to meet the requirement of a more professionalised sector.

28. MBF advocates that all organizations that run mentoring and befriending pro grammes should adhere to rigorous quality standards . The MBF’s role is to provide guidance on how programmes can be run safe ly and effective ly and uses its own quality standard, the Approved Provider Standard as the benchmark for this. The MBF also has a National Training Programme which was introduced in 2007 as part of the commitment to help increase the knowledge and skills within the mentoring and befriending sector.

29. A regular review of the training needs of projects working with young people has identified key training needs for both staff and volunteers. For staff, the key training needs were identified as safeguarding (child protection), developing training for volunteer mentors, budget and record keeping skills, developing the service (including fundraising). Training needs for volunteers included: child protection, basic counselling skills, cultural awareness, developing relationships including working with challenging behaviour.

The impact of public spending cuts on funding and commissioning of services, including how available resources can best be maximized, and whether payment by results is desirable and achievable

30. The projects we consulted with identified three main areas where spending cuts will impact. These were firstly, potential cuts to or complete loss of service; secondly, having to limit their service e.g. in activities provided, cutting back training and development; and thirdly, the impact that cuts would have on young people e.g. an increase in the number of young people in need, fewer young people able to access the service and fewer voluntary opportunities available for them to participate in.

31. Resources have to be effectively managed and di stributed in order to achieve sustainable and effective p rovision.  Projects consulted felt p ayment by results could cause an unfair playing ground for activities such as mentoring unless there was a uniform basis by outcomes could be measured and payments made .   With provision such as mentoring, tangible outcomes are as important as intangible ones, however the latter are far more difficult to assess and reward from a payments focussed process. 

32. S pecific suggestions made by mentoring and befriending projects were for support for projects to develop sustainable and effective systems that ensure that available resources are maximised before any new resources are allocated. Also that grassroots delivery is the most effective way of maximising resources.

33. In conclusion, projects we consulted with had strong views on payment by results and how appropriate this would be for mentoring and befriending services. They felt that this would inhibit their work with those who need the service most and who take the longest to achieve results and also that as mentoring and befriending is often be based around soft outcomes with every relationship different, that this would make it extremely difficult to find a common benchmark to assess on.

How local government structures and statutory frameworks impact on service provision

34. Local government structures, up until now, have been very rigid in the transfer of good practice and not terribly good at developing an integrated approach to service provision .  Where one department may find mentoring a useful and cost effective tool for supporting their priorities, this has not necessarily been disseminated or picked up by other departments. 

35. The government frameworks that are in place need to be accessible to all. This means that they need to be easily understood and there needs to be clarity in what the frameworks purpose is. This will allow a more transparent approach and organizations offering provision will be able to clearly identify which areas their provision can address.

36. The clarity in frameworks should also be apparent with their intended outcomes to make it possible for organizations offering provision to understand at the outset what they will be contributing to at a local and national level.

How the value and effectiveness of services should be assessed

37. In order to fully appreciate the cost benefit of mentoring provision the whole range of short and long term outcomes need to be appreciated so that, for instance, an individual who achieves their potential through the support of mentoring provision not only achieves success for themselves, but passes that success to their peers and family through a shift in perceptions of themselves and of others.  This is why it will be vital that when a model is developed, we must be able to measure this as a whole as well as the individual aspects of mentoring provision.

38. An important point a bout mentoring is that the young people accessing support all have individual needs and therefore blanket solutions do not always work – either for them or the community as a whole. More can be achieved by working individually to support each person in a way that is appropriate to their needs rather than using blanket solutions . Mentoring helps young people to find their own solutions and develop their own determination to succeed.

39. Projects also highlighted that the value and effectiveness of services can be shown through good quality case studies and can be assessed in terms of saving to other services as a result of the mentoring and befriending intervention e.g., one project has identified that they have been at the forefront of helping young people come off the Child Protection and Child in Need registers which is an indicator that mentoring is saving society money in the long run .

December 2010