“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

Author Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Welcome to Innovate Dorset

The influences affecting young people and children in society today are huge; pressure from family, peers, education and in some cases looking after others as Young Carers, all put pressure upon those who may even have the extra struggle of contending with education while coping with a learning difficulty or sadly broken homes.

Innovate Dorset is a positive activity and mentoring service that is low cost, effective and currently working successfully within Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole.

Unlike other mentoring or activity companies Innovate Dorset understands that costs must be affordable and therefore makes no “call out charge” or mileage claim before a worker turns up. Keeping the cost to the customer low but providing a high quality service you should expect from a mentoring service.

Introducing a Positive Adult Role Model, mentoring can have a huge altering impact on young people and children, increasing confidence, self-esteem and help each young person build a better future for themselves, maybe even preparing them better for the challenges later in adult life.

Innovate Dorset Mentors are seen as positive adult role models for children and young people, supporting those who may come from a troubled family background or who are underachieving at school. This group may also include those at in danger of offending or those at risk.

Innovate Mentors provide emotional guidance and a sense of continuity and stability that may be lacking in their lives. Through successful mentoring, constructive friendships are established and maintained, the young person or child can then learn to trust and value their mentor while learning to develop essential social skills, and recognise their own strengths, and grow in confidence. Innovate Youth Mentors are enthusiastic, trustworthy, and able to motivate children and young people. As a professional service we feel it is important to be friendly and approachable, while able to provide a patient, listening ear and balanced advice when necessary.

We believe in showing a strong interest in the young persons or child’s life and interests, and build up these first steps to create a strong relationship that is extremely valuable. Innovate mentors have repeatedly found that children and young people often open up and talk about things that they previously felt unable to talk about with others.
To maintain this relationship, Innovate believe it is essential to be consistent and reliable. Meeting with the young person or child on a regular basis at agreed times and place, even if the young person or child is unable or unwilling to be there.

How successful is mentoring?

Mentoring is cost-effective and efficient. Research by the University of Luton Vauxhall Centre has shown that mentoring children and young people leads to a reduction in offending behaviour and found that mentoring projects involving young people led to a reduction in problems at school and had an improvement in the young people’s self-esteem and self-awareness.

Many children who were mentored are found to become less disruptive at school and are more able to re-engage with mainstream education.

The young people themselves highlighting the value of  friendship, trust, guidance and encouragement of the Mentor. Being a mentor could be one of the most rewarding experiences. It can also be one of the most challenging frustrating and difficult to achieve.

Unlike Life coaching, mentoring works by helping the young person to discover choices and then make an informed decision and then supports the young person as they venture along their chosen path.
Life coaching can instantly show a person how to succeed/fail or make the correct choice to any given need or situation.

Mentoring is about offering a choice but understanding that there may be other factors that will change an outcome and simply following steps to copy success is not always possible.