Blog Post July 2017

Posted on 18/07/2017

A report by the Royal Society for Public Health in May 2017 reported that Instagram was the “worst for young mental health”. The research on 1479 young people aged 14-24 years asked them to rate social media platforms for anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image.
Our own experience at Mentor Link has seen a huge increase in anxiety amongst young people with children as young as ten years old being referred to our services with issues around self-esteem. Our service provides a simple but effective support to young people by giving them the opportunity to talk to an independent adult each week in school. These adults are very carefully recruited and matched to the young people and share life experiences or hobbies and interests with them. This creates empathy with the young person to build up a relationship of listening/befriending and support. The aim of our support is to improve the self-esteem of the young person and engagement in learning and we have an excellent track record of success. One parent wrote to us this week to say:

The progress and development since you have been involved with his self-belief and confidence has been amazing and we feel it is a priority to his development that he continues to receive this additional service.

At Mentor Link the young people are at the centre of our service and we work with over 60 schools in the West Midlands. If you share this post with parents/teachers/governors who may be interested in our service or want further information see our website.

Andrea Maddocks CEO Mentor Link
In 2002 Andrea set up Mentor Link and the charity now provides a service to over 160 children and young people each week in over 60 schools across the West Midlands. In 2011 Andrea was awarded an MBE for Services to children young people. To contact Andrea email Andrea.Maddocks@mentorlink.org.uk