Befriend a Child has launched an urgent appeal for volunteer mentors for their intandem mentoring project, to support disadvantaged children living across Aberdeen city.

The appeal is being driven by the rise in demand for the charity’s mentoring project.  intandem is Scotland’s national mentoring programme, with Befriend a Child being one of 11 charities nationally to support young people aged 8-14 years old who are involved in the care system.

The recruitment drives comes at a time when the charity has appointed a new member of staff to head up the intandem team, Senior intandem Co-ordinator, Olivia Polak. Olivia has a vast range of experience in running a mentoring programme from her previous role at MCR Pathways.

Olivia said: “I am very passionate about mentoring and have seen first hand the positive difference it can have on young people’s lives. Mentors usually don’t know they are even making an impact, but just being that reliable and trusted adult in a young person’s life means the world.”

Having a consistent, caring mentoring relationship helps young people develop confidence, improve their wellbeing and build resilience, giving them the foundation they need to build strong relationships in the future and overcome challenging experiences from their past. 

Olivia said: “Our mentors spend 2-3 hours twice a month with their mentee, enjoying activities and outings in the community which are goal-focused and led by the mentee. These can be goals such as learning to ride a bike to enable independence, becoming confident enough to order food in a restaurant or increasing hours in school.”

Funded by the Scottish Government and The Robertson Trust, intandem mentoring specifically supports young people who have social work involvement. Young people can become involved with the care system when parents struggle to navigate tough times. This could be due to chronic illness, substance use, mental health problems or a death in the family – all things that can make it harder to give children the best care and support. 

“The young people in our mentoring programme just need that trusted and reliable adult role model who will listen, engage with them and help them to reach goals they didn’t think they would achieve.” Olivia said.

If you are interested in finding out more about Befriend a Child’s intandem mentoring programme, please visit – https://www.befriendachild.org.uk/intandem-mentoring