Mentoring and befriending programmes aim to help children and young people to build trusting relationships with adults. These relationships can improve their well-being, develop skills, and help them achieve personal goals.
This systematic review looked at mentoring and befriending programmes specifically for care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care due to experiences of significant harm. The systematic review sought to understand whether and how care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care benefit from participating in mentoring and befriending programmes. The review also explored children, young people, and practitioner views on how mentoring and befriending programmes can best serve them.
We commissioned Liverpool John Moores University to conduct this work. The systematic review informed the development of the Mentoring and Befriending Practice Guide, which sets out key principles and recommendations for local leaders on the design and delivery of , based on the best available evidence.
We aimed to assess the effectiveness of mentoring and befriending programmes and practices that improve outcomes for care experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care, and to understand the implementation considerations involved in delivering such programmes.
The review aimed to answer five research questions:
The systematic review followed established evidence synthesis methods to identify both published and unpublished evidence from randomised controlled trails and quasi-experimental studies that have examined the effectiveness of mentoring and befriending programmes for care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care.
The systematic review also included qualitative evidence which have explored the barriers and facilitators to successful implementation of programmes, as well as the perspectives and experiences of children and young people regarding the usefulness and acceptability of mentoring and befriending programmes.
Of the studies included in the systematic review, 20 assessed the effectiveness of mentoring and befriending programmes, 19 studies assessed the barriers and facilitators to successful implementation of programmes, and 18 studies explored the views and experiences of children and young people regarding the usefulness and acceptability of mentoring and befriending programmes.
Overall, the evidence shows that different types of mentoring and befriending programmes can be of benefit to care experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care. This includes:
The qualitative evidence identified several barriers to engaging with mentoring programmes, including a lack of self-esteem associated with asking for help, uncertainty about the benefits and timing (with some young people transitioning out of care feeling they were past the point where they required support). Trust was key to a successful mentoring relationship and was associated with a mutual and equal relationship built on listening, and the mentor’s willingness to be consistently available for the child or young person.
The systematic review found that formal training and regular supervision for mentors and befrienders was a common component of mentoring and befriending programmes. However, details about the content of training were often sparsely reported.
Training should:
There should also be ongoing supervision to monitor mentoring and befriending relationships and to identify and support with any arising issues.
The implementation evidence suggests that this combination of elements increased mentors’ self-efficacy to support care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care, facilitated feelings of safety among mentors and befrienders, and prevented children and young people from experiencing further feelings of rejection by setting clear boundaries and providing mentors with support.
The goal of mentoring and befriending programmes should be to ensure that all care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care have an equal opportunity to benefit from mentoring and befriending regardless of their sex/gender, race/ethnicity, disability, age or other vulnerable characteristics. However, our review found a major gap in the evidence, in that many studies did not examine the impact of mentoring and befriending programmes for different groups of children and young people. Services that provide mentoring and befriending should strive to engage all care experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care in mentoring and befriending programmes regardless of their backgrounds.
There is a need for further UK-based research to evaluate the impact of mentoring and befriending programmes and practices care experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care. There is a need for intervention development research to build the consensus around a theory of change that is relevant to, and takes account of, the lives of care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care in ways that are contextually meaningful and relevant.
Further, a key objective of the systematic review was to explore how effective mentoring and befriending interventions are for promoting good outcomes. A range of outcomes were examined but future studies should aim to measure the short- and long-term outcomes along the mentoring and befriending journey that matter most to care-experienced children and young people and those at risk of entering care. As such, children and young people should be meaningfully involved in designing programmes and defining goals, change, and impact in ways that matter most to them.
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