What Do We Do?

Ment4 provides one-to-one specialist mentoring for 11 to 18 year olds with emotional and behavioural difficulties based in and around Croydon. We help those vulnerable to crime, non-attending or excluded from schools, those judged as particularly vulnerable by Children's Social Care, and direct referrals from families. 

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How We Help?

Mentors will spend 5-10 hours a week with each young person, in order to identify causes of problems and behaviour responses. This time is also used to establish meaningful connection and build rapport. A 'goal plan' is drawn up for each young person and progress towards those goals are reported in weekly reports sent to the referrer. In that way they will have a detailed picture of the issues and progress throughout.

 

Mentors become a 'trusted adult' in the young person's life, becoming a supportive representative on the young person's behalf whilst working alongside the parent, school, peers, and other agencies. The mentor serves as a role model, inspiring the young person with new perspective and opportunities through their own life experiences.

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For those caught up in crime, we help them discover positive alternatives to wrong practices. For those struggling in education, we help identify causes of difficulties and work with teaching staff to build long-term stability in behaviour and attendance. And alongside that, we always work closely with families, giving them support, encouragement and coaching boundaries, where necessary.

 

Practically speaking, a mentoring day can involve attending court meetings, meeting teachers, setting up training and employment appointments, or spending time talking over a milkshake or a game of table tennis. Through these, we build trust, respect, opportunities and hope for the future.

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How You Can Make A Referral

A Referral Form is available for download in our Resources section or you can email an enquiry or request a referral via info@ment4.org. We also welcome a call for an initial discussion. If suitable, we meet the young person with the referral agency and introduce our mentor. To help get management budgetary approval, we are happy to provide a written emailed proposal that can be easily forwarded to those making decisions. At the start of a programme we set up a Service Level Agreement with the referring agency or family and commit to providing monthly invoicing of charges and weekly reporting.

 

Our Moral & Inclusive Approach

Ment4 has built a reputation as a leading, tried and trusted professional service, used by youth justice, educational and social care agencies in local government and the third sector. It supports young people of all beliefs and social groupings and provides mentor support without bias or agenda. Its Trustees and Board hold to a Christian faith and believe that this provides a valuable moral framework for the work of its team. In a society where there is concern over radicalisation for harm and abuse, the morals with which it works are the true opposite. In much the same way as the great Christian reformers founded education and social welfare, so too, our team seek to provide positive encouragement and guidance to bring hope and new opportunities. The true heart of the Christian ethos is non-violent acceptance of all, where there is no condemnation, but only an expressed value for every human being. Within our mentoring, the team adopt a policy of avoiding contentious issues, in order to focus on the young people and their goals. They will respond to questions about their faith when asked, but will not press their beliefs on anyone in their care. Instead, their aim is to role model positive values and boundaries, that are recognised by all as non-threatening, commendable and welcomed in a society of tolerance and mutual respect.