Young People: Mentoring

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We certainly consider mentoring, in a whole range of ways, to be extremely important, which is why we will be launching a £12 million government fund to extend and scale up proven schemes that link mentors with young people. We will launch this scheme later in the year and announce further details. We would welcome organisations that are involved in mentoring across an entire spectrum bidding for this funding, because we believe that it is extremely important for young people to have role models in a variety of areas to help ensure that they reach their potential.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, charities such as Barnardo’s—I declare an interest as a vice-president—work with troubled teenagers and know that mentors, through support and guidance, can transform the life chances of children in care and children who have been abused. Can the Minister indicate how the new mentoring programme will complement other support for the most vulnerable, including access to emotional well-being services?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, later this year we will launch a new £12 million fund, through which we will look to provide funding to help scale up already proven mentoring programmes, and I am sure that a number of those the noble Baroness mentioned will be included. We are also planning to launch a high-profile campaign to raise awareness of the impact of mentoring among not just young people, but organisations, charities and businesses. We want to ensure that 25,000 young people who are most at risk of dropping out of education or underachieving have access to a mentor.