Mentoring: Movement to "reconnect" youth to society sweeps inner-city Black Britain

"JJ" is an underachiever; bright but destined to fail his potential for further education or a job in corporate industry. "Kilroy" says he can't shake his drug problem, and will probably drift further into self-destructive behaviour. "Yolo" is an ex-offender at 18 and it won't be too long before he's back inside.

But there is no way these black lads and hundreds like them are going to let these dire predictions come true, They are protégés of a new movement based on a life-saving combination of mentoring, education and personal development.

Origins
From its Old World origins, the term mentor has come to mean wise teacher and guide, philosopher and friend. Today mentoring works best through one-to-one relationships that reinforce hope in aspiring Black youth. The volunteer mentor seeks to share new skills, perspectives and attitudes with another person - the protégés or mentee.

Dealing with inequality
Widely used in America, studies by the influential Commonwealth Fund in New York show that mentoring can "forestall a hopeless and alienated future for many of today's children" (see photo above). In Britain, Sir Herman Ouseley, himself an outstanding achiever in local government and racial relations, is an outspoken advocate of mentoring. He is of Caribbean descent and chair of the Commission for Racial Equality.

"English institutional procedures work very well for white males," Sir Herman once told a mentoring conference. By contrast, "minorities start at a disadvantage and are handicapped by low expectations, a shortage of networks, negative stereotyping and few positive role models," he said. "Mentoring has much to offer a black child in an unequal society," he concluded.

Guiding students and employees
Most mentoring efforts in the UK target aspiring students and young employees. In Norman McLean's national mentoring consortium at the University of East London, professionals and executives from 45 companies share personal skills and information networks with African Caribbean students. Volunteer mentors play a key role in raising the confidence and aspirations of protégéss, says Dr Marie Stewart in her consortium report "A Positive Mentor Attitude".

In a unique business-led initiative, the London-based African and Caribbean Finance Forum nurtures the skills of young entrepreneur with career guidance programmes. "This helps the economic development of the African Caribbean community," affirms Brenda King, ACFF chair.

Accessing higher education
Mentoring projects are crucial ladders over the ivy-covered walls of academe for many "under-represented" groups. Yolande Beckles, at the Windsor Fellowship, an educational charity founded in 1986, helps give a head start to college-bound minority ethnic students. Residential seminars, collegiate discussions and work placements are used to broaden their horizons.

Grass roots needs
Boosting high-flyers further up the corporate and educational ladder has its place. But the greatest need for mentoring lies in the less well-off black communities of Britain. The excluded, the under-achievers, the troubled and troublesome youth - all need help in their quest for manhood and womanhood. Providing guidance and sustained personal commitment to young persons is urgent.

A Second Chance

What mentors can do locally, in deprived areas like Hackney, London, is well illustrated by the award-winning Dalston Youth Project. Sarah Benioff's manual, "A Second Chance", shows how DYP mentors target at-risk youth and give them hope, marketable skills and qualifications. Core elements are intense mentoring relationships, residential seminars and education and training programmes.

"Most of the youth are either truants or have been excluded from mainstream education. Their common problems are criminal offending, drug abuse, family breakdown or unemployment," says Benioff. Eighty per cent are British-born youth of African Caribbean backgrounds. "They are referred to us by local agencies such as social services, education, welfare and the police, although joining the project is voluntary," she says.

Mentors, though unpaid, get a sense of pride out of their work with young people. "They also get training as counsellors and youth workers, and receive a worthwhile accreditation upon completing the training programme," says Benioff.

Saving abused youth
Mentoring at the street-level is increasingly seen as a crucial antidote to societally abused black youth. Clones of the Dalston project - called Mentoring Plus -have mushroomed across London and the nation. The organising body is Crime Concern a "crime prevention charity working for community safety, in association with social and law and order services," says Sarah Benioff. Black-led projects under the Mentoring Plus banner are up and running in the boroughs of Brent, Lambeth and Lewisham, all areas of large concentrations of African Caribbean communities.

Amanda Howells' Minority Plus project in Lewisham brings together 40 at risk black youth and their professional, business, and community mentors each year. Of African Caribbean origins herself, she had five years experience in Dalston. "We are in a learning process together," says Ms Howells. "The mentees gain motivation to succeed in life, and our mentors, all of them trained by us, take pride in making a contribution to the community," she says.

Across the Thames river, Lynthia Grant, of West Indian parentage and director of Mentoring Plus Brent, says "Our mentees are mainly black teenagers. They come to us from a variety of at-risk backgrounds". Many are "in grave danger of slipping further into crime and drug abuse, and we want to prevent this," she says. "Our best mentors are often local African Caribbean men who themselves have been excluded from the mainstream, but have somehow changed their own lives around, " says Grant, and she adds: "That's what mentoring is about: movement and change".

Paulette Jones echoes these sentiments. She handles mentoring affairs for the Divert Trust founded some six years ago by Lord Elton. The trust, she says, "is a crime prevention charity dedicated to serving and saving youth at risk of exclusion - from school, work and society". New projects in Lambeth, Haringay and Brent have grown out of earlier efforts in north Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, all in London. Local projects average 25 to 50 participants per year, and there are majorities of black youth in many of them, according to Jones, one of the few African Caribbean officers in the trust.

Local priorities are important
Inevitably, the new mentoring movement reflects local priorities. Nottingham's black-led Pentecostal churches spearhead Divert Trust activities. They target African Caribbean and mixed parentage youth, their parents and schools. In Leicester, another arena of youth crime prevention work, the trust acts to build up the self-esteem of at risk youth. It encourages cooperation with local police, schools, and probation and social services.

Mentoring schemes in Birmingham tackle the exclusion of black boys from schools. At the KWESI primary school project mentors work in classes with their mentees. The Second City, Second Chance project gets at risk secondary school students to tutor literacy sessions for primary pupils, and they are in turn supported by adult mentors.

Success, yes, but...
Grave faults in company-sponsored mentoring programmes have been identified. Dr. Marie Stewart's evaluation of the National Mentoring Consortium, the largest UK effort, shows that company managers' goals are unclear and their mentored students are often isolated from mainstream company activities.

As far as youth crime charities and social workers are concerned, "We think we are very successful in what we are doing," says Sarah Benioff. She says independent evaluators report that 80 per cent of the young participants end up in full-time education, training and employment. Arrests are reduced by 50-60 per cent and re-offending is almost unheard of. "These figures are pretty good," says Benioff, an American who has worked in the toughest neighbourhoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York.

However, there can be no illusions about these efforts. Mentoring alone will not save or serve all the "JJ's", "Kilroy's" and "Yolo's" of inner city Black Britain. "Mentoring is not a panacea for the ills of society that affect black youth," says Amanda Howells. She knows the pressures of social exclusion are great, and the resources too scarce.

Nevertheless, there is a groundswell of opinion among project directors, educators and black-led community, church and business groups that "We must try to make a difference in the lives of the youth and communities with which we share our mentoring dreams".

(This article is based on a Chronicle investigation of mentoring. The lads' names are purely fictitious; the experiences are not.)

Mentoring needs you

So, why not join in fostering responsibility among young people, providing guidance by example and helping them to set and achieve new goals?

The elements of fitness are simple enough. You must have the interest, the time and the experience to make a good mentor. You must be willing to learn new skills to enhance your natural instincts: listening, discretion, discipline and perseverance.

OK, so you may have an incredibly hectic lifestyle, an office or household to run. But a few hours a week spent mentoring an "at-risk" kid from the back streets can be your way of helping others to help themselves.

As the African proverb says: "It takes an entire village to raise a child".

BUZZ WORD: Mentoring

What it is
"Mentoring" is a technique of education and training for change widely practised in urban America and more recently in inner-city Britain with beneficial results for students, their mentors and urban communities.

Where it comes from
The word "mentor" has a Greek root meaning steadfast and enduring. In the Odyssey, Homer gives the name Mentor to the friend whom Odysseus entrusted with the guidance and education of his son, Telemachus. Homeric belief suggests that fortunate youthful adventures benefit from mature guidance. In many cultures of the ancient world "mentors" played an important role in rites of passage from youth to adulthood. Since the 17th century "mentor" has been synonymous with the wise teacher and guide, philosopher and friend.

Why it is important today
Mentoring in its modern form is a response to the need in inner city and ethnic minority areas for "those one-to-one relationships that reinforce hope and offer guidance". It enlists individuals to serve voluntarily as mentors to youngsters who, with consistent support, will make it - through school, into a job, and into self-reliance.

Mentoring: Contact details:

Norman McLean,
National Mentoring Consortium
University of East London,
Tel: 0181-590-7000 4344/4359; Fax: 0181-849-3646
E-mail: mclean@uel.ac.uk

Yolande Beckles,
Windsor Fellowship,
Tel: 0171-613-0373; Fax: 0171-613-0377

Commission for Racial Equality
Tel: 0171-828-7022; Fax: 0171-931-0429

Mentoring Plus Brent
Lynthia Grant Tel: 0171-604-4552

Mentoring Plus Lambeth
Rory Campbell Tel: 0171-733-2424

Mentoring Plus Lewisham
Amanda Howells Tel: 0181-691-1919

Sarah Benioff
c/o Groundwork,
Tel: 0171-222-1230; Fax: 0171-222-1219

Paulette Jones
Divert Trust
Tel: 0171-379-6171; Fax: 0171-240-2082

Gillian Bowen
African Caribbean Home-School Mediation Project,
0171-737-2366

Dr. Marie Stewart, Consultant
Tel: 0171-242-3132; Fax: 0171-242-1464
E-Mail: taylor.stewart@virgin.net