A sure way to connect with young people

Connexions mentoring service joins forces with Sure Start Plus to support young parents

Connexions Nottinghamshire, the advice and support service for 13 to 19 year olds, has joined forces with Sure Start Plus, a support service which works with young parents and expectant mothers to develop a young people’s peer mentoring programme in Nottingham City.

The young people at Sure Start Plus, who identified mentoring as a mechanism for support, initiated the programme. They felt it would be helpful to have someone they could speak with who had gone through similar experiences they were going through.

The programme is effectively designed to benefit those young people who are mentoring as well as those who are mentored.

To date, the peer Mentoring programme has included:

• assessing the needs of the programme and the young people;
• ensuring that the young people are given relevant training;
• supporting the organisation in developing a mentoring structure, and;
• assessing the needs of young parents.

A two-day training course was recently delivered to ten young people at Sure Start Plus. These young people will receive an OCN qualification in mentoring. There are also training and workshops available for young people to get involved with on issues such as ‘parenting skills’ where young fathers come together to discuss their needs and to support each other.

Tony, who has a one year old son, explains how his experiences help him to mentor other young people who are facing the daunting prospect of parenting. He says: "You could say I have already been a mentor, I have friends who come to me for advice. I can now use these new skills I have gained through the mentoring project to support other young people like me through Sure Start Plus and Connexions."

Tony has taken part in the mentoring training and is looking forward to becoming a mentor. He recently delivered a presentation to over a thousand people at the National Fathers Direct conference in London.

Merrecher Liburd, from Sure Start Plus, supports young people on a one-to-one basis. She can provide help and advice on a range of subjects including: help with maternity grants; applying for or finding out about benefits and finding alternative accommodation.

Merrecher explains why this joint venture between Connexions and Sure Start Plus is so important: "This is a worthwhile project because both the young people who are mentoring and the young people who are being mentored will benefit. This will allow the young people we support to see that life doesn’t stop when you become a parent; opportunities are out there and you can go on to do and achieve other things."

Deana Goode, Mentoring Manager at Connexions adds: “This is a great chance for young parents to share their experiences with others facing parenthood. We are working together to ensure that young parents are given the support they need.”