TYP Mentor

22 Jul TYP Mentor

The Youth Project’s Mentoring Scheme ran throughout the academic year of 2014-2015. The idea was to provide a small number of children with learning disabilities with a mentor. The mentor would then meet every Saturday with their child and assist them in developing their numeracy, literacy and computing skills. In addition, each mentor would act as a friend to the children. The relationship was such that each child was able to talk openly with their mentor about their hobbies and interests and occasionally any concerns or worries they may have had at the time. The classes were both helpful in a practical sense (developing the children’s skills) and also helped to develop the children’s independence, which was a main reason behind us running the scheme. Outings consisting of volunteers with and without the children were also common, to restaurants etc. In this way, by the end of the year the volunteers had become better friends with each-other as well as the children. We are hoping to start this scheme again in 2016 and would love for more volunteers to get involved. If you are interested in volunteering or looking after our mentoring scheme in the year of 2016, please contact us for more information at [email protected]. We would also love to hear from you if you simply have any suggestions as to how we could improve the scheme, or enhance the mentoring experience.