Working With Offenders
Mentoring Projects
This is a summary of the national evaluation of the Youth Justice Board's (YJB) mentoring projects.
Title: Mentoring Projects
Author: Roger Tarling, Tonia Davison, Alan Clarke (Institute for Social
Research University of Surrey)
Date published: July 2004
Number of pages: 60 (summary 12)
Projects
The Board funded 43 mentoring projects over 3 years (1999-2001). This evaluation is based on 39 of these projects.
The main objective of the mentoring projects was to reduce or prevent offending. Many also aimed to reduce social exclusion and encourage social reintegration of disaffected young people by focusing on developing educational attainment and interpersonal skills. All the projects offered one-to-one mentoring.
Out of the 39 projects:
11 were operational before receiving funding from the Board
26 of projects were located in urban environments
5 in rural settings and
8 served as encompassing both rural and urban populations.
Some included young people who were known offenders, as well as those at risk of offending. Others targeted specific groups such as first-time and persistent young offenders.
Young People
A total of 3,596 young people were referred to 38 projects between April 2000 and September 2001 from Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), educational welfare services, schools, social services, youth voluntary organisations, families and young people themselves.
Of those 3,569 young people, 2,049 (57%) were matched with a mentor.
Of those not matched:
65% declined the opportunity of having a mentor
20% wanted a mentor but a suitable match could not be found
15% were rejected by the projects as being unsuitable for mentoring.
Types of young people
75% of the young people were male and aged between 13 and 16
85% were white
Of those referred from YOTs:
42% were on Final Warnings
23% on Supervision Orders
10% on Action Plan Orders
The most common offences committed were theft, violence, burglary and criminal damage.
Mentors
All the projects ran training courses for mentors, 18 of which were accredited. A total of 1,712 adults completed a course, with 92% subsequently being matched with a young person.
Around 67% of mentors were female
60% were aged between 26 and 45
25% were from minority ethnic backgrounds
78% were in paid employment
50% had previous experience of voluntary work.
The role of mentors
Mentors can play an important part in steering disadvantaged and disaffected young people away from crime. By building a relationship with a young person the mentor can:
learn more about the individual's needs and problems
find out about the young person's interests and aims in life
provide advice, guidance and support to encourage the young person to develop social and personal skills, overcome difficulties and to counter the influence of inappropriate peer pressure.
The relationships were voluntary, with meetings often organised around specific activities. These were varied, and ranged from doing homework to going to the cinema. Some projects provided information on available activities and gave discount vouchers for those run by the council.
The ending of a mentoring relationship was found, at times, to be traumatic for both the young person and the mentor. The young person could feel rejected, while the mentor could feel tremendously responsible for the young person and concerned about his or her future well being. It was therefore considered important to plan for the natural ending of a relationship.
Time scale of the mentoring
The duration of the mentoring period varied between projects:
Almost half set the mentoring period at 1 year
5 projects set a limit of 6 months
2 set a period of 2 years
Mentors and young people were expected to meet for between 1 and 3 hours every week in most projects.
Impact of the Mentoring project
Within a year of joining the project, 198 (55%) young people had committed a further offence for which they had been dealt with by the police or courts.
Those that joined the project aged between 10 and 13 years were less likely to receive a further Caution or conviction for a subsequent offence than those aged between 14 and 17.
62% of those beginning their criminal career between the ages of 10 and 13 reoffended, compared with 42% of those beginning their careers between the ages of 14 and 17.
Whereas around 30% of first offenders reoffended, just over 80% of those with at least 10 previous offences committed further crimes.
The rate of reoffending was examined in relation to the disposal that the young person had received before joining the project.
Reoffending rates were lowest for those who had been given a Reprimand/Caution or a Final Warning (less than 40%), or who had been given a financial penalty.
Those receiving community disposals or a custodial sentence were more likely to reoffend - between two-thirds and four-fifths did so.
The rate of offending increased: On average, it was estimated that an offender committed 2.1 known offences before joining and 2.6 offences in the follow-up period.
Females were much less likely to reoffend than males.
The seriousness of offending did not change following participation in the project.
Conclusions
All the young people interviewed said that mentoring had been a worthwhile and useful experience. Although reoffending rates are relatively high, these figures have to be set in context as, to a large extent, they depend on the offence histories of those joining the project. Many young people said that their participation in the project had helped to improve their confidence and self-esteem. Mentors also noticed improvements in the young people.
Twenty of the mentoring projects have secured additional funding to continue after March 2002. A further 11 were in the process of seeking alternative funding and 5 were due to close through lack of funding.
Recommendations
Establishing projects
It is essential that those establishing new projects are aware that it can take between 12 and 18 months before they become fully operational.
Recruitment and retention of staff
Criminal record checks on potential mentors should be undertaken as soon as possible to avoid delay between their appointment and when they start work.
Building a relationship between the Young Offender Teams (YOTs) and the project
Ideally, the essence of mentoring is an unofficial, voluntary, non-judgmental relationship. In this way, Young Offender Teams should try to avoid becoming too directly involved in running projects, as this could deter young people from taking part.
However, a strong working relationship between YOTs and mentoring staff should be developed, and a project co-ordinator appointed to liaise with the YOTs.
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