Blog Article
The Peer Mentoring and Mental Health Champions for Children and Young People's service is commissioned and funded by 探花直播 City Council. This work will focus on the improvement of mental health and wellbeing in children and young people across 探花直播. 探花直播 is working alongside 聽and Our Place Support to deliver the project.
The service targets 16- to 25-year-olds living in 探花直播 and provides specialist peer mentoring support to individuals from three key groups, including ethnic minorities, people with disabilities or long-term health conditions and the LGBT+ community.听
The aim is to provide a safe space for mentoring aiming to improve mental health and resilience, as well as a chance to gain new skills.
The role of BCU on the project is to source dedicated volunteers from our diverse student population. BCU recruits volunteers from our student-body and empowers them with professional training opportunities to become impactful peer mentors on the scheme.
Each student volunteer receives聽CPD-accredited Peer Mentoring training,聽Basic Mental Health First Aid training,聽Safeguarding training, and ongoing peer support.
This helps students to support others whilst also adding significant value to their own personal and professional development. At the end of each mentoring cycle, participants receive a聽certificate of achievement聽and are directed to 聽to help them integrate their experience into CVs and future job applications, boosting their employability.听
The service is inclusive: BCU students are also eligible to use the service as Mentee鈥檚 if they feel they would benefit from the support. This process is being managed with the support of the BCU Mental Health and Wellbeing Team.听
In聽Year 1, BCU provided聽16 trained mentors on the programme. The response has been positive, with聽168 expressions of interest聽received so far. Year 2 of the project commenced聽in February 2024 and the momentum continues:聽10 mentors聽have already completed their training, on track to meet the year鈥檚 goal of 15 mentors.
The project aims to form opportunities for students to make a real difference in the lives of others, while building skills and experiences that will serve them long into future careers.