COACH - Community Mentoring
This programme targets young people aged 12 - 16 years and families with children aged 0 - 12 in deprived areas who are disadvantaged or are at risk of poor parenting, family violence, isolation, addiction or poverty. The majority of the children/young people come from low-income single-parents, often dealing with substantial emotional issues and are often welfare dependent/out of work. COACH has shown to improve reliance (eg self-esteem and self-discipline), and improve education, training and employment outcomes of the young people and single parents. We measure improvements in resilience and education/training/employment outcomes.
In addition we aim to improve social capital ('citizenship', 'neighbourliness', 'social networks' and 'civic participation') in tough communities. We do this by mobilising and training volunteer coaches who come from within or near these communities. These volunteer coaches are role models and provide life-coaching for young people and/or families. They are similar to mentors but are more focussed on goal setting. We focus on goal setting as and antidote to low-aspiration and passivity and to encourage people to take responsibility for the change that is needed in their lives and communities. We provide the coaches with (i) skills training, (ii) deployment and (iii) coaching supervision in the local community as well as their (iv) on-going development. We also ensure best practice in terms of CRB and reference checking.
All of those working as volunteers have regular Love is a Verb support meetings to encourage and provide ongoing training and development. Meetings are on a monthly cycle and are well attended. This is reinforced by one-to-one supervision. Catalyst follows best practice in terms of CRB checking and the COACH programme has Approved Provider Status set by the Mentoring & Befriending Foundation (MBF), the key accreditation body in the UK. This is recognition that we have got the right structures and processes in place on which to build and ensure the quality of our work and organisation. We are involved in ongoing training with M&BF.
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