About Leeds Mentoring

Aims

• Raise educational achievement
• Help young people develop socially and educationally
• Enhance career prospects
• Encourage progression to post 16 and higher education

Background Information

During the last decade, Leeds has been at the forefront of mentoring activity. Leeds Mentoring has committed considerable resources to mentoring in the city and fully supports mentoring as a tool for human development. Leeds Mentoring has worked in partnership with a large number of organisations within education, business and voluntary sectors and now offers one of the largest mentoring services in the country. The service is run by Education Leeds, the wholly owned Leeds City Council company responsible for a range of education services in the city. Leeds Mentoring supports mentoring in schools, colleges, companies, local authorities and voluntary and community organisations.

Mentors are recruited from a wide range of backgrounds and include employees from the private, public and voluntary sectors, students from local universities and colleges, and retired citizens. Different mentoring schemes have been developed to reflect the diverse needs of client groups. Leeds Mentoring has developed expertise and provided mentoring for students in educational establishments; employees from minority ethnic groups; for disadvantaged groups from inner city areas and for the retention and development of professionals from the business community. To support these schemes we provide Mentor training, target setting, monitoring, evaluation and accreditation. We also provide management support, educational consultancy, and strategic planning.

The first pilot mentoring project was set up in 1992. This developed two years later into the initial SRB Round 1 Mentoring Project, which targeted students from 12 inner city high schools who had potential but were underachieving. The project supported 240 mentor partnerships. Working partners included Leeds Training and Enterprise Council, and Leeds University.

The project evaluation was very positive and demonstrated that underachievement in education could be addressed through mentoring and support from volunteer business mentors. Such links not only provided suitable role models for students but also an opportunity for mentors to develop a range of transferable skills.

In partnership with the University of Leeds and Business in the Community (BITC), the LEA was successful in attracting funds through the government's Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) - Round 3, for a five-year mentoring project. The scheme, set up in October 1998, offered mentoring activities to schools in inner city Leeds. During the project, mentoring took place in 8 secondary, 26 primary schools, and three FE colleges. It was supported by the business sector and Higher Education establishments, as well as from among professionals in voluntary organisations and community groups. The main aims were to increase educational achievement, enhance employment prospects and raise aspirations and personal goals of young people in the target group.

Other projects managed by Leeds Mentoring included the Community Mentoring Initiative (CMI), New Deal Mentoring and Excellence in Cities Schools Initiative. The CMI was supported by the European funded Urban Initiative and targeted young unemployed ethnic minorities in inner city areas. Excellence in Cities was launched in 1999 with Leeds Mentoring working closely with an additional 11 High schools across the city. Year 10 students were identified by Learning Mentors and matched with volunteer business mentors.

Through the DfES Aim Higher programmer, Leeds Mentoring is currently working with all secondary schools and colleges in the City. The project is currently supporting around 4000 partnerships; business mentors, peer mentors, e-mentors, subject specific mentors, BME NHS and PGCE/ITT. Student Tutor Mentoring children in public care (CIPC), Internal Mentoring in schools.