Analysis: Practice - Mentoring - Friendship model makes way formore formality

Mentoring works. That's the message from The Prince's Trust's Mentoring Potential report, which was published last week (YPN, 8-14 June, p6).

The trust found that youth-run community groups benefit greatly from mentors and proposed a model for how best to deliver such support.

The report is the latest in a long line of research supporting the use of mentoring in youth work, but it's an approach that does not always reap immediate rewards. Mark Ulliott, a volunteer mentor at Kent Mentoring Service, says would-be mentors need to be aware that the approach is not about instant improvements.

Breaking the ice

It takes time to get to know the young people; they don't respond as quickly as mentors might like, says the property maintenance worker, who mentors two teenagers. "Breaking the ice with the younger one has taken longer," he says. "It can be a challenge to get a young person's confidence."