Sharing Good Practice adult ?) and given the opportunity to practise their skills in a safe environment .
• All pupils need to know about the programme and trust it . They need to know how to access the service when they need it and be clear about their , and their mentors , commitment .
• Peer mentors need to be supported – the role can be emotionally draining and it is important that the mentors are given support and supervision on a regular basis as well as ad-hoc opportunities to be able to share anything that is causing them immediate concern .
• Records need to be kept – as with any other school-based intervention , you will want to know how many mentors accessed the service , what the issues they presented with and what they thought of the support they received .
• Mentors need to know how and when to signpost onto other services and how to close the relationship – mentors are not trained counsellors or therapists and sometimes their mentee will need specialised and professional help . Peer mentoring should only last for as long as it is useful and should never allow either the mentor or the mentee to become dependent on the other . So – set clear time frames for review and ensure that the relationship only continues for as long as it needs to .
Yvonne Richards is Training and Development Manager at Kidscape - a charity which works across the world to keep children safe from harm and enable them to fulfil their potential . A qualified teacher with over 20 years ’ experience of training , Yvonne has developed BTEC Peer Mentoring qualifications , trains groups of peer mentors and coordinates a peer mentoring project .
Class Time | | Sep - Oct 2017 | 29