BrightsideUNIAID

What is ementoring?

Mentoring gives people the chance to get one-to-one support, advice and guidance from a volunteer who is independent from their ordinary life. Ementoring allows mentors and mentees to have conversations via a secure, online space, at a time and place that suits them.

BrightsideUNIAID ementoring aims to help young people, aged 14-25 from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to:

• feel inspired and confident
• explore their options
• build skills
• get informed and prepared
• make the right choices

For mentors, it provides a flexible, time-efficient way to volunteer and help others. As a mentor, you can see the impact of your support, share your own experience and develop skills yourself.

“I have been using the mentoring website for about 3 years now, and it's been a great help to me. I've had help with my personal statement, my normal subjects at college and with interviews at university.  We've discussed my career and university choices, gap year/ 3rd year college plans, financial situations, social life and so many other things.” - Bright Journals mentee

How does it work?

Ementoring can be conducted via email, but BrightsideUNIAID provides more than that. Our unique web platform provides online content and high security, ensuring that mentees and mentors are safe, supported and engaged.

Conversations – a secure conversation space enables mentors to have confidential discussions with their mentees. Mentors can hold group conversations with all their mentees and with other mentors on their scheme.

Resources and news – users can access over 2000 news articles and resources in our online library. This content, written by our expert web team, supports the mentoring relationship by providing up-to-date information on a range of issues, including career pathways, money, study skills and independent living. This online content stimulates, informs and guides mentees and also supports mentors to start discussion and answer questions.

Coaching and training – our innovative curriculum of coaching activities is designed to help mentees build key skills such as time management, study, money management and confidence. The activities add focus and structure to relationships. Mentors can assign activities to their mentee and work with them to complete them. The curriculum is also mapped to National Curriculum Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 to help school students at key transition points. Mentors can also complete an online training module to learn more about the site and further develop their mentoring skills.

Security – protecting the young people on our ementoring projects is our top priority. All mentors must pass a CRB check before being matched with a mentee. Every user has their own unique username and password, the ementoring website automatically filters for inappropriate or abusive language, and there are multiple levels of physical and software protection, including firewalls and encrypted communication. There is a function for community moderation – whereby mentors and mentees can flag up unsuitable content for review and moderation. The ementoring website is only accessible to BrightsideUNIAID and the partner's scheme coordinator who all hold Enhanced CRB approvals. Both the scheme coordinator and our team monitor the site’s content and messages every day.

Click here for an online demo

More than just a website

We believe that there is more to successful ementoring than the provision of a website. We deliver most of our projects by working closely with a partner who coordinates the project. To engage mentees and mentors and deliver positive outcomes, we provide full project coordination support to our partners including

• web content
• training sessions and materials for mentors and mentees
• ongoing monitoring, moderation and technical support
• project management, implementation and evaluation support

Getting involved

If you’re a university, corporate partner or organisation looking to start ementoring, we’d love to discuss running an ementoring project with you. If you’d like to join our ementoring network, then you can register to become a mentor or a mentee.