Due to Covid-19, now more than ever Hammersmith and Fulham’s most vulnerable children need connection and support. Our ever-expanding network means we are able to build meaningful partnerships with primary schools and Family Early Help teams and ensure we reach the hardest to reach children within the community. Through extensive onboarding and ongoing mentor training, we will facilitate child-led, weekly sessions over 12 months. On our refined programme model, each child receives 100 hours of one-to-one support outside the home and school environment. We want to recruit, train and match 50 committed and representative local heroes to mentor to 50 children in Hammersmith and Fulham, providing support through their transition back into the world as lockdown eases, alongside their transition into secondary school. With your support, we can build children’s resilience through positive activities, and re-connect them with their communities whilst supporting child-led goals.

What we'll deliver:

• Recruit: 50 diverse and representative local heroes
• Train: Deliver over 10 hours of training for each local hero to become a high-quality mentor
• Match: Hold child workshops to find & match them to the right mentor, based on what they consider to be representative.
• 5,000 hours of mentoring: Each pair will embark on a yearlong journey, amounting to 100 hours of support for each child.

Why it's a great idea:

This programme will allow us to invest in the power of London's communities; training local people as high-quality volunteer mentors to deliver safe and consistent time together over 12 months. With a blended programme of face-to-face and digital mentoring we will ensure effective wellbeing support to 50 children throughout the pandemic and beyond! We want to create lasting effects on the children we support and positively impact our mentor’s lives. Most importantly, we will remind these children that they have a community around them that cares.

Steps to get it done:

• Recruit 50 local heroes
• Deliver over 10 hours of training to each local hero to become a high-quality mentor
• Match 50 children to the right mentor, based on their needs and what they consider representative
• Support each pair in their year long journey of weekly mentoring, amount to 100 hours of individualised support