If you know the work we do, you'll know that we use mentoring tools and techniques to frame our programmes and services. At the centre of what we do we give young people the extra support, they need to navigate the structural inequalities they face on a daily basis.
Once you get to know the communities we work with, many young people come from homes of generational unemployment or homes where parents work in low-paid and insecure work. Parents are either too tired, too stressed, or too ill to have informal or the more necessary conversations their child needs to navigate the difficulties faced when trying to enter or sustain employment. Those conversions around the importance of 'small talk' or the frustrating 'office politics' are not had in a manner that helps young people to sustain employment.
That is why we are proud to announce that we have been funded by the BME Health Forum to deliver a 5 month Saturday Mentoring Lunch Club for 17-25 year olds. During the sessions, there will be a carousel of activities that participants can do such as:
● Job and career opportunities workshops
● Health conversations with the medical volunteers
● Healthy cooking on a low budget
● Supported job search / Applying for jobs
● Group and 1:1 befriending and career mentoring
Supported by volunteers who come from medical backgrounds such as medical students or students of health and social care subjects, who will help young people gain qualifications such as First Aid, Food Safety and Hygiene, and an AQA Unit Award Digital Skills: Online Communication.
At The Mentoring Lab we define mentoring as: Being safely guided by a trusted person with a set of qualities and more experience in a particular area, via the use of mentoring tools and techniques, to support another with less experience in the progression and achievement of chosen goals and targets.
During this project, we will provide group and 1:1 mentoring using our Mentoring Toolkit. The toolkit teaches emotional resilience through the Zones of Regulation. Young people will learn to recognise emotions, associate them with a colour and explore strategies to self soothe and regulate their emotions. This enables participants to feel empowered in challenging situations by recognising when they are becoming stressed and less regulated, so that they are able to manage their feelings and get themselves to a healthier place.
The mentoring toolkit also looks at personal development and helps participants set incremental goals towards personal and career progression with the support of a mentor.
We thank our partners BME Health Forum and funders of the Saturday Mentoring Lanch Club Comic Relief, who raise money to support people living incredibly tough lives, The Clothworkers’ Foundation and Esmee Fairbairn.
