INFORMATION

 

 

 

PROMISE MENTORING;
PROMISE is a resilience promoting intervention aiming to produce a wide range of benefits and opportunities for children, young people and families.

PROMISE mentors;
Provide opportunities for children to take part in demanding and challenging activities.

Enable contact with a reliable and supportive adult and facilitate contact with helpful others and networks who can provide activities and opportunities.

Express, praise and value competences in young people’s achievements and attributes.

Expose young people to events and people who contradict previous negative experiences.

Promote coping strategies and skills.

Encourage viewing negative experiences positively, which helps children reframe experiences and be an active rather than passive influence on their own future.

Promote social skills.

Encourage personal awareness of strengths and limitations.

Encourage feelings of empathy for others

Promote a belief that one’s efforts can make a difference.

Encourage a positive view of society, and a belief that legitimate efforts can make a difference to life opportunities. 

We know from research and experience that all these factors not only benefit each young person but also that the positive changes which result have a direct impact on attitudes and actions. This reduces offending and anti-social behaviour, thereby benefiting our communities as well as young people themselves. 

Research into the PROMISE programme by Rudi Dallos, Professor of Clinical Psychologist at The University of Plymouth, has highlighted the following reasons for the success of PROMISE mentoring. This shows the most important part of the therapeutic process is the relationship itself. (The need to feel safe enough emotionally to engage). 

Young people internalise mentors voices “she’s always in my head, what would my mentor say” if I did this or that etc. 

Help VALIDATE experiences. Talking has a healing effect. Mentors are in a unique position to help young people process their experiences……….. to stand outside and make some sense of them

Find young peoples strengths. Point out that young people can learn from negative experiences. 

Bring CALMNESS to what are often emotionally chaotic lives. This creates a secure base so that emotional difficulties are not constantly controlling them.

See good things in each person……….VALIDATION Help young people to see that problems do not come from inside the young person. They come from a web of relationships. This counteracts comments such as “I’m not good enough” “Theremust be something wrong with me” etc 

The research identified five major themes running through interviews with young people.

Good Object……….often characterised by young people’s descriptions of the mentor in positive terms in contrast to a distinct lack of people they did feel positive about in their lives.

Good Relationship…………..shared view that it was a “good” relationship. For some people this implied it being like a relationship with a parent while for others it was important that it was not like a relationship with a parent.

Attachment………….. the idea of feeling there is someone you can turn to when you are frightened, anxious, threatened or fearful…….. there when needed. “Its one person that has stood by me……….. she stopped me from slitting my wrists…….she put me back on the rails”

Building Trust…….. the idea of trust being built on the basis of availability and being able to rely on the mentor. The mentor “goes the extra mile”. “When she took me out, we talked and the next time she took out to this proper Royal Naval base and we watched the Air Display and we saw all these planes and helicopters………. really I thought I didn’t really know her, I thought well, she done this in her own time and thought it was really nice of her and that’s the reason I like her” “When I first went to the care home I didn’t talk to anyone for about a month. I was very quiet but now I can talk to her about anything. I know I can trust her she has managed to make me trust other people. I talk to her about everything”

FACILITATING CHANGE……….. giving advice and suggestions, taking a directive stance and simply being available. Young people felt certain that the mentor had prompted changes in their lives in avariety of ways. 

‘When I saw her I was wearing these hideous clothes and stupid hairstyle and there was one time she said; “You ought to do something about your hair and you don’t look too good, and those clothes, get some decent clothes”. I don’t think she was being cheeky. I thought she was saying it to make me look better, giving me advice. I did what she said’