Breakthrough Mentoring

Breakthrough is an activity based mentoring scheme that uses skilled mentors to offer weekly, one-to-one support to a range of vulnerable people who have been identified by an agency as being in need of support.

The project uses activities to help our mentees to build positive relationships with adults and peers as well as intersted and skills that can be sustained in the longer term. In some placements, short and long term targets are set and closely monitored for each placement and these are linked to rewards events and activities.

A Short History

Breakthrough Mentoring started in 2002 as a small project run by the South Gloucestershire Schools PEA. The programme focused on using the power of sport to help young people experience challenges to improve their own lives. Breakthrough provided a skilled mentor to engage the targeted person during weekly sessions usually lasting for about a year.

Since 2002 the programme has grown from 5 placements in 2002 to over 200 placements each week in 2011. Over 100 skilled mentors work across 5 local authority areas in the West of England with more partners joining all the time.

Breakthrough is now a partnership of local authorities and third sector organisations who come together to share contacts and resources. South Gloucestershire Council plays a key role in overseeing centralised training and procedures while Wesport plays the role of coordinating all partners to ensure all the local elements are brought together as one coherent partnership.

The work of Breakthrough in changing lives has been recognised through a number of local and national awards. Notably CSIP’s Positive Practice Award in 2007 as the country’s best project supporting Children and Families and this year being named the best mentoring programme in the UK by the Mentoring & Befriending Foundation.

Breakthrough continues to grow and impact positively on more lives each year. Thanks to its continuous success Breakthrough has attracted many other funders and has grown to work across the West of England and has worked with the following groups;

• Young Carers
• Young People with mental ill health
• Adults with mental ill health
• Disabled Children
• Disabled adults
• Children in Care
• Obese Children
• Children at risk of school exclusion
• Children in the criminal justice system

2011 will be another challenging but also exciting year for Breakthrough. We are exploring a European Funding bid. With our partners in 4 other areas (Bath & NE Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and Gloucestershire), 2011 may well see Breakthrough have its 1000th placement. This will be a truly amazing achievement for a programme that started as a small pilot in 2002.

For more information about local delivery of Breakthrough Mentoring please contact the following individuals:

South Gloucestershire Breathrough Team Contact: Steve Spiers at steve.spiers@southglos.gov.uk

For more information on the South Gloucestershire scheme click here

Bath & North East Somerset Team Contact: Natalie_Candy@bathnes.gov.uk

For more information on the Bath scheme click here

North Somerset Team Contact: rebecca.mccormack@n-somerset.gov.uk

For more information on the North Somerset scheme click here

Bristol Team Contact: alistair.dale@bristol.gov.uk