Building a more resilient and caring future

Youth Mentoring is when youth or ‘mentees’ are matched with responsible, caring ‘mentors’, usually adults or older role models. Mentoring has grown in popularity as both a prevention and intervention strategy over the past decades.

Mentoring provides a young person with mentors who can develop an emotional bond through social interactions with non parental adults or older peers that is intended to benefit one or more areas of their development.

The mentors use their experiences to provide support, guidance, and opportunities to help the young person succeed in life by setting or meeting their goals. Mentoring relationships can be formal or informal with substantial variation, but the essential components include creating caring, empathetic, consistent, and long-lasting relationships, often with some combination of role modelling, teaching, and advising.