ePolitix.com talks to Steve Leach, deputy chief executive of regional infrastructure at the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF), about its background, social cohesion and its aims for the future.

Question: How did the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation become established as an organisation and what ethos does it encourage?

Steve Leach: The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation developed out of a very strong relationship with the Home Office, starting with a national networking organisation.

It was soon realised that the range of programmes involved in mentoring and befriending was so wide that a national strategic body to look at influencing policy and practice across government was needed.

As well as producing a national strategy, we have developed a national infrastructure with regional coordinators established in each of the nine government regions, with responsibility for engaging with, and supporting, practitioners in the field.

The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation is committed to promoting voluntary regulation of mentoring and befriending projects through the approved provider standard, the national benchmark of safe and effective practice.

Based on our ongoing mapping of mentoring and befriending activity, we now reach over 3,000 projects in the voluntary and community sector.

Question: What are the MBF's key messages to MPs, policy makers and researchers?

Steve Leach: I would like MPs to understand the real impact that mentoring and befriending has on individual lives through one-to-one voluntary engagement.

It remains a very successful way of eliciting changes and improvements in people’s self-esteem, confidence and social inclusion. The recent report from the commission on integration and cohesion, recommends local programs to counter the lack of cohesion.

The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation supports programs that offer both these elements across any sector you can think of. It also offers opportunities for people to volunteer and contribute; we have many instances of those who have received mentoring going on to befriend and mentor others.

I would like policy makers to ensure mentoring and befriending is recognised as having a central role on all service development around community cohesion.
 
Policy makers need to realise that although mentoring and befriending is a voluntary engagement, it still needs proper resources and quality assurance.

For researchers, I would like to point out that mentoring and befriending works. A recent American study of more than 190,000 individuals in 500 community-based organisations, presented the first ever economic estimate of the cost of youth mentoring.

As a conservative estimate, it said the state could expect $2.72 return on every dollar spent on effective mentoring programmes and an average return of $4.89 on every dollar invested on a youth intervention programme.

Question: Why is the MBF involved in the issue of social cohesion?

Steve Leach: Mentoring and befriending is at the heart of promoting social cohesion. Many programmes across all sectors recognise the need to support local people in local communities.

From the friend who visits an elderly person restricted in their flat, to the mentor who meets a young single parent struggling to make ends meet and get back into work. Or the young Muslim male who goes out into the community to meet white males and discuss cross cultural issues.

Mentoring and befriending works in the very areas that are about social isolation, cross cultural understanding and access to support and service. By its very nature, mentoring and befriending bridges the gaps and becomes a vital element towards achieving social cohesion.

Question: What policies on social cohesion are you trying to encourage through your campaigning, consultations and policy recommendations?

Steve Leach: We are putting together a report for the Cabinet Office on how we can support strategic partners and programmes in the field and advise the cabinet office on their current policy areas.

We aim to highlight examples of current mentoring and befriending programmes in local communities, consider some of the wide ranging research in the field of community cohesion and provide guidance in the effective use of mentoring and befriending in improving community cohesion and understanding.

We hope to inform central government policy by reviewing a range of issues to provide specific recommendations for consideration.

The report will show how the work of mentoring and befriending programmes in local settings clearly report and strengthen cross community links and understanding through the very direct offer of support through these services.

We will show, through the use of current local initiatives, how mentoring and befriending programmes are central to developing policies of community cohesion.

Question: Has there been any positive impact that has directly influenced the debate on social cohesion through contact with MPs, researchers or policy advisors?

Steve Leach: We try to encourage links with government as much as possible to put over our work, whilst also working with local MPs that have an interest in mentoring and befriending and do our utmost to encourage other MPs to develop that interest.

The more we promote with local and central government, the more they come to appreciate what actually goes on.

Question: Could you tell me more about the free gold star events taking place from 5 September?

Steve Leach: The events are managed by Tribal consultancy and run through the Cabinet Office, supporting the work in the development of best practice and recognizing there are many organisations out there that are involved in mentoring and befriending, or want to be involved but don’t know how to do it.

The gold star events try to develop information case studies and good practice guidelines for new organisations to ensure that people and organisations are confident of the practices that are out there.

Question: Was your recent national conference a success?

Steve Leach: Yes, very much so. We had a full house with many more organisations wanting to join. I think the success of it was that we had such a range of workshops on issues from funding, how to set up programmes, and training and information around particular sectors.

We have had overwhelming responses and I think if we could run one every three months, we would still get a full house. It was very encouraging to see the support given to the entire mentoring and befriending programme.

Question: What are the next steps for the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation?

Steve Leach: We are establishing good practice and the Approved Provider Standard (APS), endorsed by the Cabinet Office.

Our key priorities are to promote the good practice over all sectors of the mentoring and befriending, that way everyone who wants to work in mentoring can be confident that their particular organisation has a benchmark of good practice.

We also want to make sure that mentoring and befriending is at the heart of the volunteering experience due to its one-to-one engagement. We’re currently developing programmes to spread this message across the entirety of government departments.

Question: Do you have any last comments to share with ePolitix.com readers?

Steve Leach: Please visit our website. Look at the range of activities out there and the case studies and the areas they you can get involved in.

Please come to us and we can try and help you contribute, there are organisations out there that are delivering a fantastic service on a one-to-one basis and anyone can become involved in what is clearly a good part of developing cohesion in our communities and cross cultural understanding. Get involved.