training for mentors - Solution Focused Brief Therapy UK

Training for Mentors

Community Care coverage of our Young Mentor training course for Walsall Borough Council

"I will look at issues from a more positive "futuristic" point of view. Looking forward rather than backward. Best training I have ever had - a real eye opener".Julie Deakin, Learning Mentor, Freeston Business Enterprise College

Our Solution Focused Mentoring Training Programme is founded in the principles of deShazer's Solution Focused model: working with the strengths, expertise, personal resources, ethnic and socio-economic culture of the Mentee in order to achieve best outcomes for the Mentee.

Details of our diverse Mentor Training programmes are set out below. Current projects can also be seen on our News page and the direct link on our home page, to the BBC Radio 4 programme about our tailored Mentoring Programme at Hertswood School, Herts.

We have developed various Pilot Projects for the NHS, recently training the staff of The Mayor's Employment Project, in London to use our Returning to Mainstream programme with their clients as part of the team's Helping Clients Return to Work remit.

One of our Mentoring Project for the NHS includes the PALS Scheme at Martin Hospital, Canterbury - training a group of staff and volunteers from the local community including ex-patients, to work with patients who are experiencing anxiety, depression and drug recovery.

One of our latest projects is with BUILD Community Project in Leicester:
training the community volunteers, pictured below, to work with young people within the community.

The BUILD Mentors, who include businessmen and women and students from the local Leicester community, have been trained to work with young people to prevent disaffection and exclusion which renders young people vulnerable to becoming involved in gangs and extremism.

Below are some evaluations from the participants following our training

"Progress for future generation - excellent training"
Shahzeb Yusuf Madiar

"I feel more confident and prepared to Mentor people - I have gained a lot of knowledge".
Faizah Essat

"This Approach will enable me to connect with Mentee yet maintain a level of professionalism. It also helped me to understand the importance of optimism as a key feature in being able to overcome one's problems. The training not only helps you to become a better mentor but also gives one a better understanding of themselves".
Amena Mohamed

"I feel that I have been empowered with tools and techniques which will help me through the journey of mentoring. Thank you for helping me to make sense of it all. I feel I can take up the challenge of Mentoring and making a difference to someone's life."
Rumena Choudhury

Our Solution Focused Peer Mentoring Programme was recently implemented in Hertswood School, Hertsfordshire. This joint programme organised by the school and the police under the direction of PC Sue Taylor and Lynn Berry has proved very successful, especially for under-achieving Year 9 boys who were the target group. This has been been extended to include The Business Mentoring Group where members of the business community have been recruited by the school and trained by the Consultancy to work to the Solution Focused ethos.

Radio 4 visited the school to talk to the Mentors and Mentees and this can be heard by clicking the link on the Home Page - headed Radio 4's You and Yours.......

PC Susan Taylor with the mentors of Hertswood School, the first school in the country to implement Eileen Murphy's Peer Mentoring programme.

Leicester City Council have trained their Learning Mentors in our The Solution Focused Approach to Preventing Disaffection & Exclusion Training course. Solution Focused Mentor Training with Adults:
Mentors and Peer Mentors from Social Care, Education, Prisons and Probation are trained to work collaboratively with the Mentee in order to highlight the Mentee's full potential.

The principles of the approach:

A collaborative worker in the process of change and achievement rather than prescriptive experts. The Mentee is the expert of their lives, their resources, their goals and past achievements. The Mentor's expertise lies in establishing the goals of the client, eliciting resources and strengths of the client. Mentees are more motivated to achieve goals which they have themselves identified. The Mentor can instigate change by the language they use during 1:1 sessions and in Groupwork. The Mentor is interested in the client's current life, what works for them, their coping strategies, their current goals rather than highlighting weaknesses and past failures.

We encourage conversations to establish the personal strengths of the Mentee; a search for exceptions to problems and an investigation of successes. It is the Mentee's expertise that is harnessed in the work towards change and achievement.

In these conversations - that work in partnership with the Mentee's socio-economic, ethnic and family culture - Mentees are helped in real ways to achieve change in keeping with how they live their lives. "Conversations for change" are effective by subtley inviting the Mentee to engage in conversations about tomorrow's goals with the Mentor acting as a conduit between the Mentee and the goals that need to be achieved.

This programme has also been implemented by Local Authorities who wish to achieve better outcomes from their POSITIVE ACTIVITIES SCHEMES.

Young Mentors being trained in Liverpool

Utilising the skills of Young Mentors as part of Positive Activities Scheme both Liverpool
City Council and Walsall Borough Council have commissioned our Solution Focused Mentor Training Programme as part of their POSITIVE ACTIVITIES SCHEME to train young people aged between 15-19 to work directly with children as part of the Council's Summer Reloaded activity scheme (Positive Activities Scheme).

The activities were attended by children from across the Borough, some were referred directly from Social Services. Council staff, who also attended the training, provided constant support as "Troubleshooters" for the Mentors with the Team here providing weekly on-site Group Supervision for the Mentors in their hands-on work. An evaluation by Liverpool University is available on application to the Consultancy.

Feedback from Leicester EiC and others can be seen on our Evaluations page

"Just wanted to thank you for the training in Northampton. The team came back in to a meeting 2 days later raving about it. Most had used it in their practice the next day. In the network meeting they said they felt it ought to be compulsory for all mentors."
Jan Geary - Lead Learning Mentor, Excellence in Cities - Northampton