Mentors get boost

Could you be a good mate? That is the question Bridging the Gap will be asking when it hosts a youth mentoring reform forum in Kwinana on February 28.

Run in partnership with the City of Kwinana and the Department for Communities, the forum is designed to disseminate recent research about the power of mentoring.

Bridging the Gap special projects co-ordinator Caroline Marshall is organising the event and said there was a serious lack of youth mentors in Rockingham and Kwinana but hoped reforms to mentoring would solve this problem.

“Mentoring works. The Smith Family is very much involved in having a team of mentors locally and the Education Department has in-school mentors but for the rest of it, I am afraid to say, there aren’t a lot of mentors,” she said.

“They’re a bit thin on the ground.

“This forum though is there to plug that hole.”

Mrs Marshall said mentoring was an invaluable tool in re-engaging at-risk young people with the community.

She said was excited for service providers in the area who could help build local programs which would increase the rates of mentors.