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In October and November 2009, MBF ran two focus groups to aid the development of a two year campaign to raise the profile of mentoring and befriending.  The campaign was also an agenda item at the annual MBF conference 2009. These discussions explored:

• Common themes and differentiators of mentoring and befriending
• Shared definitions, language and messages
• How to involve practitioners within the profile raising campaign

A balance of mentoring, peer mentoring and befriending projects attended these events from a variety of sectors.

Key things that projects told MBF:

• When asked what one word represented mentoring and befriending to them, support came out top with hands scoring as the top representative symbol
• Common themes identified included trusting, supportive, positive, responsive, relationship, consistent and confidential
• Challenges of common themes identified included one-to-one versus group, voluntary by both parties, differences between mentoring and befriending, the unique nature of this type of support
• 26% strongly agreed or agreed that mentoring and befriending is easily understood by commissioners and funders
• 20% strongly agreed or agreed that mentoring and befriending is easily understood by the general public
• 100% of focus group attendees support the development of a profile raising campaign
• 93% of national conference 2009 attendees support the development of a profile raising campaign
• HOWEVER attendees felt that care needs to be taken to ensure that the diversity of the sector is considered and that one narrow definition might not work for all
• Projects are willing to support the campaign via further consultation, local and regional engagement and feeding in case studies

The feedback from the focus groups and national conference 2009 will be discussed at the steering group meeting taking place next week.

Read the full feedback report

Email your ideas and support to the campaign

Read the draft campaign plan