Friendship Works Mentoring Service

More Information

Friendship Works aims to:

• Improve children and young people’s social and emotional development through access to quality friendships – developing a greater ability to understand, manage and express feelings whilst making and maintaining positive relationships and attachments

• Enable children and young people to view themselves in a more positive way providing a stronger sense of identify and an increased resilience – improving self esteem, confidence and sense of self control

• Broaden young people’s horizons through access to new opportunities – having more fun, exploring new hobbies, interests and talents

How it works:

Our model of mentoring aims to build a positive friendship between a young person and their mentor and has been proven to support the development of physical and emotional wellbeing and resilience building.

For a young person to build effective and supportive relationships, it is important that contact is both frequent and long term. Research has shown that for young people, the most significant impact of a mentoring relationship occurs after 12 months. Therefore, we ask our volunteers to commit to meeting their young mentee on three weekends out of four, for at least two years.

The friendship is led by the needs and wants of the young person rather than by any externally set targets. In this way the young person is accepted for who they are, and within the safety of this knowledge can grow in confidence and feel safe enough look to their mentor for guidance and emotional support.

All our mentoring matches receive on-going support and supervision from our professional casework team, who are experienced in social care, education, child and adult mental health and youth work.

Who is the service for:

We currently support children and young people (aged 5 – 18) and care experienced young adults (aged 18-25) living in London. 

There is no typical young person we support as each are unique with varying needs, however all have experienced childhood trauma or disrupted attachments and would benefit from the support of an additional adult in their life.

How to refer:

To refer a child or young person or for more information please email Friendship Works Service with a brief outline of their current circumstances and need for a mentor.

We accept referrals from individuals and organisations working with young people as well as parents, carers, children or young adults who wish to self-refer.

Become a Mentor:

To apply to be a mentor, please use a link to sign up for one of our short (45 minute) online information sessions. You can do this by clicking below where you will find the upcoming sessions:

Volunteer to mentor a child

Volunteer to mentor a care experienced young adult