Mentoring and befriending interventions

Fostering Healthy Futures for Pre-Teens

Intervention description

Fostering Healthy Futures for Pre-Teens (FHF-PT) is a one-to-one mentoring and skills group programme targeted at children aged 9-11 years old living in out-of-home care. The programme aims to empower children to foster their own healthy futures. The programme can lead to improved cognitive, social, and behavioural functioning in care-experienced children.

Intervention components

• Skills groups: a group of eight to 10 children with two facilitators meet for 30 weeks during the academic year, for 1.5 hours per week. The groups use a structured curriculum that combines cognitive-behavioural strategies with activities aimed to support children process adverse childhood experiences. Topics could include problem solving, anger awareness/management, emotion recognition, cultural identity, and resisting peer pressure.
• One-to-one mentoring: a mentor is paired with two children, and the mentor meets each child two to four hours per week during the academic year. Mentors support children by: advocating for needed services; forming relationships with children to serve as positive examples for future relationships; helping children practice skills learned in skills groups; engaging children in social, cultural, educational, and recreational activities; and promoting positive future outlooks.

Examples of individuals who can deliver the intervention

The intervention is delivered by three practitioners:

1. Skills group: delivered by a clinician, psychologist or a social worker with a bachelor’s degree in psychology
2. One-to-one mentoring: delivered by a social worker with bachelor’s degree
3. Group supervisor: delivered a social worker with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Training requirement for practitioners

• Practitioners are given 8–9 days of training and a yearly eight-hour booster session
• Supervision of practitioners: supervision is done by two clinical supervisors and a skills supervisor.

Delivery setting

• Secondary schools
• Community
• Home.

 Find out more about FHF-PT.

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The Adult Connections Team (ACT) programme

Intervention description

The ACT programme is an enhanced outreach programme involving provision of externship services, and involves young people shadowing professionals to learn about their field. The primary aim of the programme is to improve employment, educational enrolment, and mental health outcomes by providing peer support opportunities. The ACT programme is effective in significantly reducing offending and arrest among children and young people.

Intervention components

• Enhanced youth-led outreach: this involves peer support activities, social activities, dinners, and social media communications facilitated by youth peers. To increase attendance, the activities could be planned to focus on events at holidays, for example, Christmas dinner, or summer holidays.
• Coordinated mentoring: is aimed at supporting positive relationship building between young people and their mentors. Youth specialists coordinate matches between young people and mentors, and support young people to choose a mentor. After the match, mentors are provided with ongoing support through regular outreach and additional training.
• Job readiness training: provides young people the opportunity to learn skills needed for employment in their profession of interest, through a 20-hour job readiness training programme.
• Externship services: young people are placed in externship to acquire job skills while receiving ongoing help and support with obtaining employment in an area of interest.

Intervention duration

• Enhanced outreach: unspecified duration – to be done as needed.
• Mentoring: one-to-one in-person mentoring, conducted over a year or longer.
• Job readiness training: 20 hours of one-to-one training or paired in-person sessions.

Examples of individuals who can deliver the intervention

• Enhanced outreach: provided by youth specialist
• Mentoring: delivered by volunteer mentors selected from a pre-existing network. Youth specialists are involved in coordinating mentoring matches
• Job readiness training: delivered by an employment specialist.

Training requirement for mentors

Mentors are given three hours of training focused on topics such as the foster care system, helping young people manage money, and working with children and young people who identify as LGBTQ. Mentors receive ongoing support and supervision throughout the duration of the programme.

Delivery setting

• Community.

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Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens

Intervention description

Fostering Health Futures for Teens (FHF-T) is a 30-week programme of community-based one-to-one mentoring for children aged 13 to 15 years old in non-kinship foster care and kinship care due to experiences of adverse childhood experiences such as: instability in housing, caregivers or school; parental substance abuse; parental mental illness; or parental incarceration. The programme supports children to build on their competencies and reduce adverse outcomes.

Intervention components

The programme incorporates weekly one-to-one mentoring, skills training, and teen–mentor workshops with career shadowing.

Who can deliver the intervention

• Mentoring: graduate students studying psychology or social work
• Workshops: facilitated by professionals with subject-specific expertise.

Intervention duration

30 weeks of one-to-one in-person mentoring sessions, lasting between one to three hours each week. Each mentor is paired with three children.

Training requirement for mentors

Weekly four-hour individual and group supervision. Mentors attended seminars designed to support them throughout their mentorship.

Delivery setting

• Community.

Find out more about FHF-T.

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My Life/TAKE CHARGE programme

Intervention description

My Life is an adapted version of the TAKE CHARGE self-determination programme, which was previously designed for disabled young people. Like the TAKE CHARGE programme, My Life provides youth-led coaching and near-peer mentoring, to enhance self-determination and goal achievement.

Intervention components

The programmes support young people through one-to-one coaching in self-determination skills and group mentoring workshops that bring together mentees and near peers with lived experience in out-of-home care.

Examples of individuals who can deliver the intervention

• Mentoring: near peers 3–4 years older than mentees. Near-peer mentoring is delivered in a group workshop for learning, networking, and peer support
• Coaching: intervention delivery staff members and supervised graduate students in social work.

Intervention duration

9–12 months in total, with weekly one-to-one in-person coaching and mentoring, and up to four workshops.

Training requirement

• Coaches: 32 hours of group or individual coach certification training taught by My Life supervisors either in person or virtually. Following training, 32 hours of supervision is provided in-person or virtually.
• Supervisor: 40 hours of certification training offered by master trainers, with 20 hours supervision provided virtually or in-person.

Delivery setting

• Community
• School
• foster/kinship care setting

Target population

Young people, aged 15–19 years old transitioning out of care, including disabled young people and those with mental health challenges.

Find out more about My Life/TAKE CHARGE.

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Better Futures

Intervention description

Better Futures is designed to support children and young people aged 16-19 years old in out-of-home care, including those with disabilities or severe mental health challenges. The programme is aimed at improving self-determination skills, as well as supporting children and young people to prepare for and enter post-secondary education.

Intervention components

The programme involves young people participating in a summer programme on a university campus, individual peer coaching, and mentoring workshops.

Who can deliver the intervention?

Peer coaching and mentoring: delivered by young adults aged up to 28 years old in higher education, who are care experienced and/or have experience of mental health challenges.

Intervention duration

• Summer programme: Four days, three nights spent on university campus
• Peer coaching: Nine months, bi-monthly one-to-one in-person coaching
• Peer Mentoring: Five group workshops held in-person, for learning, networking, and peer support.

Training requirement for mentors

40 hours of training on the foster care system, mental health, education, and general coaching techniques. Weekly individual and group supervision sessions run by intervention managers.

Delivery setting

• community
• university campus.

Target population

Young people aged 16 to 18 years old in foster care who were also identified as experiencing severe mental health challenges.

Find out more about Better Futures.

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The Massachusetts Adolescent Outreach Programme

Intervention description

The Massachusetts Adolescent Outreach Programme (MAOP) is a voluntary mentoring programme which pairs young people with an outreach worker who works closely with them to achieve set goals related to the young person’s needs. The programme can empower young people to develop skills of an independent adult, support their participation in higher education, support them to achieve permanency by connecting them to a caring adult, and identifying a support network for young people.

Intervention components

Outreach workers help young people with a variety of activities such as applying for college, getting a driver’s license, and gaining employment. This involves signposting the young person to other support services, or direct support from the outreach worker, such as assisting the young person to complete a job application.

Who can deliver the intervention

• Volunteer outreach workers.

Intervention duration

One-to-one in-person support at least once a week.

Training requirement for mentors

Specialised mentor training to ensure mentors understand young people in foster care.

Delivery setting

• Community.

Target population

Young people transitioning out of care.

Find out more about MAOP.

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