Youth mentoring
Information for parents and carers
about Raise youth mentoring.
What is youth mentoring?
A mentor is a more experienced person who is trained and trusted to support a less experienced person over a period of time.
Sharing knowledge, skills and life experience to guide another towards reaching their full potential.
Raise youth mentors are expertly trained to guide adolescents through the Raise program curriculum and focus on developing the individual skills they need to tackle the challenges that come in those early teen years.
A supportive relationship with a trustworthy adult is one of the single best predictors of wellbeing for young people facing life’s challenges.
A mentor can really change the course of a young person’s life with research showing that a young person’s confidence and self-respect increases following expert mentoring.
Raise youth mentoring programs are run in participating schools and online to meet the individualneeds of young people. For in-school programs, the school will invite young people to take part, however, you or your young person can apply directly to us to take part in Raise Digital, our online programs.
Impact of youth mentoring
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We know through our extensive evaluations that youth mentoring makes a real and lasting difference to young people. It changes the direction their life is heading by giving them to tools to not only survive the teenage years, but to thrive.
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We know through our extensive evaluations that youth mentoring makes a real and lasting difference to young people. It changes the direction their life is heading by giving them to tools to not only survive the teenage years, but to thrive.
A parent's experience
My child had a reasonably good year 7 but has anxiety. Going into year 8 and hitting puberty was really tough and they were getting into trouble a lot at school. The difference from before was chalk and cheese. They started pulling away from us and shied away from conversations with other adults who could help. They were also very self-conscious and had a fear of being singled out or speaking in class. Things were bad.
Then they joined the Raise program. They started appreciating the time their mentor invested in them. They started to smile again and become less anxious. They wanted to work on their confidence and boy did it work!
They can now articulate their thoughts and speak confidently to adults. They even acknowledged the progress they had made, which was a big change. Instead of being negative, acknowledging their own progression was amazing.
From being a kid getting into trouble, they went on to win a school award. They were super proud of that. After the program we all saw opportunities to do things differently for a better outcome. Thank you. We needed this support and it came just at the right time - going from a child into puberty. It was such a great opportunity and I would definitely recommend it.
- Parent of year 8 Raise mentee.
Due to our stringent Youth Safety Framework we do not identify the young people who have been through Raise programs or their family.
Who are our mentors?
Youth safety is central to everything we do at Raise. It’s why we ensure that all of our mentors have a current Working with Children Check and a national Police Check.
Our mentors are expertlytrained so you can be confident that Raise mentors have the skills needed to support your young person effectively. Our industry-leading training involves 8 online modules and a full day workshop with our training team. Our Raise Digital mentors complete further training to ensure they are able to effectively mentor in an online environment.
Our mentors and mentees are always supported, whether in school or online, by a degree-qualified program counsellor who is there to provide additional support and guidance where needed.
My child's school has selected them for an in-school mentoring program
Our in-school programs have been running since 2008. Over that time we’ve supported over 16,000 young people to improve their skills in the core areas we know they need to thrive in adolescence and beyond: resilience, asking for help, hope for the future and school belonging.
You can find out lots more about our in-school programs by clicking the button below.
I'd like to apply for my child to take part in Raise Digital online mentoring
Raise Digital brings all of the benefits of our in-school programs online.
It will suit your teen if they:
- haven’t been selected for the program at school or their school isn’t running the in-school program
- don’t attend aschool setting
- would prefer to access support outside of the school setting
- would prefer support after school hours
You can find out lots more about our Raise Digital programs by clicking the button below.
