The Youth Mentoring Network is the result of a rare partnership in which four national organisations - The Smith Family, Job Futures, Big Brothers Big Sisters Australia, The Dusseldorp Skills Forum - developed the initial proposal and having committed their own funds invited the Australian Government to come on board as the fifth member of the group.
National Youth Mentoring Partnership
The Smith Family is a pioneer of and strong advocate for youth mentoring programs in Australia. This is consistent with the organisation’s focus to help young people from struggling backgrounds fulfill their potential through education and caring support. Australia-wide, more than 1,100 young people are currently being mentored through Smith Family programs, and many thousands more are “alumni”. The Smith Family offers a suite of mentoring programs for disadvantaged students from primary school through to tertiary education. Appropriate volunteers are matched with students and guided throughout the relationship via best practice training and support.
The Smith Family believes mentoring is a highly effective strategy to support, bolster and engage disadvantaged youth, many of whom lack role models, resources and networks to make informed decisions and maximize opportunities. The Smith Family is strongly committed to youth mentoring as an organisational priority in achieving its mission of unlocking opportunities for disadvantaged families to participate more fully in society.
The Dusseldorp Skills Forum (DSF) is an independent, not for profit body with a mission to achieve changes needed to enable all Australians to reach their potential through the acquisition of productive skills. In particular, the Forum seeks to improve the learning and work transitions of young Australians by cooperating with communities, industry, government and non-government organisations to generate ideas, research, tools and information, and to build networks of common interest. It finances its own work.
The Forum has had a long-standing interest in mentoring as one of the more valuable ways in which a young person can be personally supported in understanding the life choices available to them and acting upon them. The Forum’s particular interest has been in those young people at risk of leaving school early. Having recognised that for many young people, the middle years of schooling can be a critical turning point, the Forum worked with retirees, TAFE and educators on the Central Coast of NSW to develop the Plan It Youth mentoring program. This program has now been enthusiastically embraced by the NSW Department of Education and others with PIY programs (or variants of it) taking root across NSW and interstate.
Given the Forum’s conviction that good practice deserves not only to be propagated but converted into good policy, the National Youth Mentoring initiative is a natural extension of our work in this field.
Job Futures is a national network of not-for-profit organisations that provide a range of employment, training and related services across Australia, with a particular focus on assisting those most disadvantaged in the community. Many of our programs and services, such as Green Corps and the Queensland Community Mentoring Program, focus on young people and are aimed at building community sustainability. Their Indigenous mentoring program is also an important part of our services to Indigenous Australians.
Job Futures believes that mentoring can play an important part in helping young people, especially those with high needs, to overcome their disadvantage and participate fully in community life. They are therefore delighted to be a partner in the Youth Mentoring Network, which they believe will assist many organisations to develop expertise in mentoring and bring its benefits to many young Australians.
Big Brothers Big Sisters involves one to one friendships between adult volunteers and young people experiencing disadvantage. Volunteers come from all walks of life and share a common desire to offer their time, friendship and support. For more than twenty-five years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has matched thousands of children and young people with carefully screened volunteers. Mentors have made a significant difference to the lives of young people and their families. Their standards of practice draw upon over 100 years experience in service delivery and research in America and Canada.
Across Australia, mentors commit to spending quality time with a young person – between 2 to 6 hours each week for more than of 12 months – undertaking a range of simple, inexpensive activities. The average length of matches is 3 years.
Big Brothers Big Sisters currently operates nationally and has been recognised as a leader in youth mentoring. They are committed to delivering high quality, responsive mentor programs which engage community and business. Their future vision is to expand mentoring options for young people, and to increase the number of matches..
The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is a member of the Youth Mentoring Network Partnership with a view to achieving significant outcomes for mentoring in Australia such as:
promulgation of minimum standards of good practice;
ensuring procedures are in place to provide for the safety of young people;
training, orientation support and monitoring of mentors;
the opportunity to harness the significant expertise of the Partnership that would complement the biennial forums, to be conducted by DEEWR that are intended to identify and promulgate good practice and success across the Mentor Marketplace programme.
The Mentor Marketplace program increases the mentoring opportunities for young people by bringing together mentors and young people and promoting the value of mentoring within their communities. The program aims to improve the outcomes for young people aged 12 to 25 years, particularly those at greatest risk of disconnection from their family, community, education, training and the workplace. Mentor Marketplace projects provide access to mentoring for a wide range of young people, including but not limited to those in foster care, young carers, young people with disabilities, Indigenous young people and those from disadvantaged groups and localities.
The Smith Family 
