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An evaluation of NCVCCO’s ‘parent mentoring’ project
SUMMARY
BACKGROUND AND AIMS OF THE PROJECT
This document is a summary of the results of an evaluation undertaken by Debi Roker of the Trust for the Study of Adolescence (TSA). The evaluation was of a pilot ‘Parent Mentoring’ project, managed by NCVCCO and run in collaboration with three partner organisations across England. The grants for the pilot project and the evaluation were provided by the Family Support Grant in the DfES. A full evaluation report is available from the author.
The broad aim of the pilot project was to train parent ‘mentors’. The plan was to recruit parents of secondary school age children as mentors, who could then help and support parents of younger children, especially around the transition to secondary school period.
The project was undertaken at three sites:
- Kinara Family Resource Centre, Greenwich (London)
- NCH Family Centre, March (Cambridgeshire)
- Forward Training (Hull).
- To identify the impact of parent mentoring schemes on mentors and mentees, in terms of parents’ levels of knowledge and understanding, confidence, perceptions of support, and consideration of different options for dealing with difficult issues or situations with their children.
- To identify the processes involved in setting up and running ‘parent mentoring’ projects. This included the successes of the projects, any difficulties and challenges that arose, and the main learning points that could be of use to others in the future.
INFORMATION COLLECTED
The broad design of the project was to (a) meet with and interview staff at the three sites on 3-4 occasions during the life of the project, and (b) conduct telephone interviews with the mentors and mentees at the beginning and end of their ‘pairings’.
However, the pilot projects did not take place entirely as planned at each site. Relatively few pairings took place at either Hull or March, and Kinara embedded their parent mentoring programme within a drop-in centre for parents (see later for details). However, other activities took place at all three sites, and a wide range of valuable learning took place. As a result, the evaluation plan developed and was amended as the site’s plans changed and developed. The following data was therefore collected in the project:
Hull: Interviews were held with the two project workers at the Hull site on four separate occasions. Interviews were also conducted with the mentors who were trained by and supported by the Hull site workers. Three mentors were interviewed twice each during 2004, ie six interviews in total. During the timescale of the evaluation, no mentees were recruited to the study, so there were therefore none to interview in the evaluation.
March: The two project workers at the March site were interviewed on two occasions. Interviews were also conducted with mentors who were trained by and supported by the March site workers. Three mentors were interviewed twice each. Two pairings did take place during the course of the project. One of the mentees involved was interviewed as part of the evaluation.
Kinara in Greenwich: Interviews were held with both the project workers on two occasions. Five mentors were also interviewed - three were interviewed twice, and two were interviewed once. In addition the author visited the centre to attend the first ‘anniversary’ meeting for the parents’ drop-in. Some mentees were also interviewed at this time.
In addition data was collected at ‘all-project’ meetings held twice per year throughout the project, and the Project Manager at NCVCCO was interviewed at the start and end of the project.
MAIN FINDINGS AND LEARNING POINTS
Each of the three sites successfully recruited and trained mentors. This took considerable time, effort, and planning. However, difficulties were then found in using the mentors. At Hull and March it proved difficult to recruit mentees. During the life of the project no mentees were recruited at Hull, with three recruited at March. At Kinara, delays in securing Criminal Record Bureau checks led the workers to set up an alternative system, a drop-in service for parents. Some ‘pairings’ were made in this way. It was therefore not possible to formally assess the impact of pairings at any of the sites. However, a large amount of valuable learning was gathered from the three sites. These are detailed in the report and summarised below:
Development of projects and training of mentors- Developing a parent mentoring project takes considerable time. This must be built into planning. In particular recruiting and training mentors, and identifying sources of mentees, takes a long time. A flexible and adaptable approach is needed.
- It can take a very long time for CRB checks to be completed. It is important to start the application process as early as possible, and have a fallback plan for what the mentors can do before the CRB result is received.
- Parents become mentors for a variety of different reasons, and advertising and recruitment must reflect this. Many parents are motivated by wanting to ‘give something back’. However, others will also be attracted by gaining skills (and possibly qualifications) and having enhanced career prospects. It is important to ‘sell’ all the benefits of being a mentor.
- Advertising materials, flyers, and the like are best produced by the mentors themselves. They have already joined a parenting course, and been trained as a mentor, and so know what is attractive to parents.
- It is important to have a well thought through training programme for the mentors, and include social activities and fun in the training.
Advertising and recruiting of mentees
- If schools are used as a way of recruiting mentees, a good link with the school or a ‘champion’ within it is essential. This person needs to build relationships with parents, and encourage mentees to come forward.
- It is difficult to recruit male mentors. One way to address this is to invite mixed sex couples to take part, or to target mentoring programmes at fathers only.
- Mentoring should not be used for parents with a wide range of difficulties or severe problems, where statutory intervention is more appropriate. A clear finding was that whilst mentoring should not be used in place of statutory services, it could be used in conjunction with them. Clear guidelines and boundaries are needed so that inappropriate referrals are not made.
- Thought needs to be given to the format of the support provided, ie whether face-to-face or over the telephone. It was not clear from this project whether one format worked better than the other. However, it is important for future projects to consider the pros and cons of each method for the mentors that they are working with.
- An informal mentoring model could also work well – in this study many of the mentors became known in their workplaces, as people who could listen and give advice about parenting. This model could be formalised, for example so that parents are trained as mentors not to ‘work’ in a specific setting, but as the need arises in their social and work lives.
Mentor-mentee relationships and supervision
- It was suggested that some parents, particularly disadvantaged parents, might distrust other parents, and be particularly anxious about confidentiality. It is important to work with mentors and potential mentees to address these issues.
- Several of the workers, and the mentors, raised issues about professional boundaries. For example, to what extent should workers expect mentors to behave in certain ‘professional’ ways – for example using swear words, or smoking in front of service users. These issues must be agreed and provide part of written guidelines.
- Boundaries are very important in working with mentors – where certain issues arise (for example child protection issues) there must be clear boundaries and guidelines in relation to what mentors can and can’t do.
Funding issues
- The funding provided in this pilot project was relatively small. This money was used mainly for practical expenses, such as travel, training materials, office expenses, and mobile phones. Thus no staff time was covered by these expenses – any future projects need to address this issue.
- Additional funding needs to be secured where possible, as most parent mentoring projects cost more to run than is originally estimated.
- The three sites involved in the Parent Mentoring project each said that they benefited from being part of a broader programme. This helped in terms of learning from others, and having ‘milestones’ to reach in the project.
- Being part of a broader programme can help organisations to develop useful guidelines for parent mentoring projects. For example the sites were keen to get guidelines for doing telephone work and counselling. This could be put together by a project co-ordinator.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Three recommendations are made as a result of this evaluation. These are:
- Despite the relatively small number of mentors and mentees involved in this pilot project, there was evidence of useful ‘seeds’ being planted. There was clear evidence from mentors, and the small number of mentees involved, that the project helped to provide information and support to parents. It is therefore recommended that policy-makers and organisations undertake further work to develop and extend this type of parent support.
- All three sites in this project trained their mentors in different ways, with different structure and content. However, there was clear overlap between the areas covered, and there was thus some ‘re-inventing of the wheel’. It is proposed that a ‘parent mentoring training programme’ should be developed, that other organisations could use, rather than having to create their own. This training also needs to be accredited.
- Due to the relatively small number of mentors and mentees involved in the current project, it was not possible to prove that parent mentoring is effective. Rather there were indicators that it was useful, both for mentors and mentees. Further projects need to be offered on a larger scale, and build in evaluation.
For further information contact Debi Roker
Trust for the Study of Adolescence
June 2005