National peer mentoring programme

What we do

Through the national peer mentoring programme MBF promotes the expansion of peer mentoring opportunities for children and young people in a primary, pre-16 and post-16 setting across the education and voluntary/community sectors. 

We raise awareness amongst key stakeholders, commissioners and funders about the positive impact of peer mentoring and how it can address local and national priorities.   

We offer support to project co-ordinators to aid the implementation and delivery of effective and sustainable peer mentoring projects.

Who we support

The national peer mentoring programme supports peer mentoring project-co-ordinators in the following settings:

Primary - Peer mentoring in primary schools is fast becoming a powerful tool for social inclusion.

Pre-16 - Within a pre-16 setting, peer mentoring can be used to tackle a range of issues such as transition, bullying, attainment and behaviour.

Post-16 - Peer mentoring is frequently used in the post-16 sector as a support strategy for young people engaging with voluntary and community groups, education providers and youth provision.

Support available

The national peer mentoring programme have training available via MBF's national training programme and our resources and publications include training packs for all sectors and the dissemination manual produced from our National Peer Mentoring Pilot.

Find out more about peer mentoring

Read an introduction to peer mentoring including:
  • positive outcomes achieved by peer mentoring
  • strategies addressed by peer mentoring
  • needs groups that peer mentoring can support
  • common settings for peer mentoring
  • see video clips of peer mentoring projects

Outcomes measurement programme

MBF offers support in measuring the impact of your peer mentoring project and sharing your positive outcomes at a national level.

Read more about the peer mentoring outcomes measurement programme

ASDAN-MBF peer mentoring short course award

MBF is working in partnership with ASDAN to help projects achieve accreditation for peer mentors and co-ordinators through a peer mentoring short course award.

Approved Provider Standard

The Approved Provider Standard is a national benchmark for safe and effective practice.  It enables mentoring, befriending and peer mentoring programmes to be accredited.

The standard is a recognised benchmark for organisations providing one-to-one, volunteer mentoring, befriending or peer mentoring and aims to provide programmes with a badge of competence and safe practice in mentoring or befriending.

The MBF online APS directory lists projects that have already achieved the standard.