Evaluation of The Mentoring Fund

Mentoring has been defined as a voluntary, mutually beneficial and purposeful relationship in which an individual gives time to support another to enable them to make changes in their life. SQW have been working with the Careers & Enterprise Company to evaluate the effect of its Mentoring Fund which aimed to support mentoring activities for young people. This ambitious programme had three main components:

  • to reach a significant number of young people who were at risk of disengagement in the years leading up to their GCSEs
  • to work with schools across all LEP areas to include mentoring in their careers programmes
  • to increase the number of mentors volunteering to support young people

A digest of the evaluation work has now been published. This summarises the findings of our research with 39 funded projects that worked across 38 LEP areas. We report that by March 2020 the Fund had supported mentoring by 3,582 mentors working in 815 schools and mentoring just under 21,000 young people in the years preceding their GCSEs. The evaluation assessed the extent to which the funded programme met its aims in supporting young people and extending the reach of mentoring activities with employers and amongst schools.

The evaluation summary can be found here.