Young people and mentoring: time for a national strategy. Family Matters no.68 2004

According to Colley (2003: 30): “Although the past 25 years have produced a vast amount of academic literature on mentoring, it has failed to achieve any consensus” [in defining mentoring]. Nevertheless, there is agreement about some key aspects. The following definition, adopted by Mentoring Australia (2000), reflects widely acccepted key elements of mentoring: “mentoring is a mutually beneficial relationship which involves a more experienced person helping a less experienced person to identify and achieve their goals”. any people can identify someone other than their parents who nurtured, guided and supported them, or who was responsible for setting them on a particular path as they were growing up. Caring relationships with extended family members, other adults and older peers provide a strong base for healthy development and a positive sense of self for all young people. The importance of such relationships in “protecting” vulnerable young people is widely acknowledged (Werner and Smith 1982; Werner 1989; Resnick, Harris and Blum 1996). However, with smaller extended families, more single-parent families, and fewer strong local community networks, the opportunities for such natural or informal mentoring relationships to occur as children and young people interact with, seek out, learn from, and are guided by older people and peers with more experience, are reduced. There is little doubt that well-planned and supported formal mentoring programs which seek to Young people and mentoring T i m e f o r a n a t i o n a l s t r a t e g y