Our vision is to see children and young people supported through tough times and empowered with the skills and emotional resilience to thrive in life and play positive roles in their communities.
We always pay attention to and create with the children and young people.
We value the power of encouraging positive thinking and speaking positively to each other. We believe every child is special and they need to know this.
We believe in the importance of respecting children and young people as whole people and we encourage them to know their own voices.
We have based our way of mentoring on the Creative Mentoring method developed by specialist senior Educational Psychologist, Dr Paul Kelly (2016). This method uses activities which focus on curiosity, play, purpose, interest and passion to improve young people’s developmental outcomes.
The Creative Mentor takes time to get to know the young person and creative activity is introduced. This means working with the child is always practical, using a range of different tools (for example film, drama, music, poetry, photography and stories) to help young people safely explore the world around them, learn new skills, communicate with others and address personal and emotional issues from a ‘creative distance’.
The creative mentoring journey typically begins with a simple question: "What can we do together?"
Creative mentoring has shown consistent positive outcomes for young people in numerous studies over the past decade. These include improving young people’s resilience, enthusiasm and motivation, engagement and participation, emotional wellbeing, behaviour, ambition and aspiration, a sense of belonging and re-engagement in education, employment and training (Kelly, 2016).
One of our main aims in us mentoring children and young people is to encourage more outdoor activity. Our mentors will be trained in the importance of outdoor physical activity and how we all need to have more play time outdoors, including adults!
Away from screens and engaging with the natural world, our mentors will work with the young people to come up with engaging outdoor activities during their time together. We believe the benefits of engaging the young people in outdoor physical play and activity can have lasting positive effects into their adult life.
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Step Out Mentoring is an initiative of The Wells Trust.
Charity #1103436
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