This online Mentoring Young People course is designed for staff, volunteers and professionals who support young people through purposeful mentoring relationships. It explains how mentors can encourage reflection, confidence and independence while maintaining clear responsibilities, professional boundaries and safeguarding arrangements.
This free course covers mentoring models, rapport and trust, collaborative goal setting, session planning, inclusive practice, safe communication, disclosures, supervision and programme evaluation. It also considers recognised mentoring principles and the evidence relating to outcomes for young people.
Why Take This eLearning Course?
Effective mentoring involves more than offering informal advice. Mentors need to understand their role, communicate respectfully, work within agreed limits and respond appropriately when concerns arise. This course supports safe, consistent and young person-led mentoring across health and social care, education, youth, community and voluntary settings.
This course will help you to:
- Build purposeful mentoring relationships based on trust and reliability
- Understand the differences between mentoring, counselling and key working
- Agree clear expectations, meeting arrangements and confidentiality limits
- Use strengths-based conversations that encourage reflection and choice
- Support young people to set realistic and meaningful goals
- Adapt communication and activities to individual needs and circumstances
- Maintain safe professional boundaries during and outside sessions
- Respond appropriately to disclosures and safeguarding concerns
- Manage difficulties, missed sessions and mentoring endings constructively
- Contribute to well-supported and evidence-informed mentoring programmes
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Define mentoring and explain its purpose
- Distinguish between peer, near-peer and professional mentoring models
- Explain how mentoring differs from counselling and coordinated key work
- Identify behaviours that support rapport, trust and inclusive practice
- Develop clear mentoring agreements with appropriate expectations
- Use collaborative goal setting and a structured approach to sessions
- Apply professional boundaries and safe communication arrangements
- Describe the correct response to a disclosure or safeguarding concern
- Identify the supervision and organisational support mentors require
- Explain how mentoring programmes can be monitored and evaluated
Mentoring Young People Course Outline
The course is organised into six modules, progressing from the purpose of mentoring and relationship-building skills through to safeguarding, supervision, evidence and programme evaluation.
Module 1: Understanding Mentoring and the Mentor’s Role
Learners will explore mentoring as a purposeful and supportive relationship that helps a young person consider their learning, development and goals. The module examines peer, near-peer and professional mentoring models and explains how the mentor’s role differs from counselling, therapy and key working. It reinforces the importance of supporting the young person’s choices without taking control, managing their wider case or working beyond the mentor’s training.
Module 2: Building Trust and Using Constructive Conversations
Learners will examine how rapport develops through dependable behaviour, attentive listening, empathy and respect for identity, culture, language and communication needs. The module explains how to establish a clear mentoring agreement covering purpose, meeting arrangements, conduct, confidentiality and review points. It also introduces strengths-based conversations, open questions, reflective listening and appropriate challenge that promotes accountability without judgement, pressure or shame.
Module 3: Goals, Sessions and Responsive Mentoring
Learners will develop an understanding of collaborative goal setting based on the young person’s priorities. They will consider how broad aims can be divided into manageable actions and reviewed without turning mentoring into a compliance exercise. The module outlines a simple structure for opening, reviewing, completing goal-focused work and closing a session. It also explains how mentoring can be adapted for age, development, communication, disability, culture, identity, motivation, risk and different working environments.
Module 4: Boundaries, Communication and Safeguarding
Learners will examine the relational and professional limits that keep mentoring safe, dependable and focused. The module covers approved arrangements for one-to-one meetings, including suitable locations, consent, organisational awareness, visibility and factual record keeping. It explains how communication outside sessions should use approved accounts, devices and platforms. Learners will also consider how to listen calmly to a disclosure, explain confidentiality limits, make an accurate record and report concerns through the organisation’s safeguarding procedures.
Module 5: Maintaining and Ending Mentoring Relationships
Learners will consider how reliable contact, regular reviews, open discussion and professional support contribute to a constructive mentoring relationship. The module addresses missed sessions, reduced engagement, misunderstandings and situations in which a mentoring match may need additional support or change. It also explains how to prepare for planned endings, recognise progress, discuss future support and respond sensitively when a mentoring relationship ends unexpectedly.
Module 6: Evidence, Standards and Programme Evaluation
Learners will review evidence indicating that mentoring may support academic, behavioural, emotional and social outcomes, while recognising that results vary and should not be guaranteed. The module considers programme purpose, young people’s participation, safe recruitment, suitability checks, matching, induction, training and supervision. It concludes with proportionate approaches to evaluation, including participation data, relationship quality, goal progress, feedback, unintended effects and the use of findings to improve programme delivery.
Target Audience
This course is suitable for:
- Health and social care workers supporting children or young people
- Youth workers, family support workers and community practitioners
- School, college and alternative provision staff
- Paid and voluntary youth mentors
- Peer and near-peer mentoring programme participants
- Mentoring coordinators, supervisors and programme managers
No previous specialist knowledge is required.
FAQ
Who is the Mentoring Young People course suitable for?
The course is suitable for staff and volunteers who mentor young people or help to coordinate mentoring programmes. This includes people working in health and social care, education, youth services, community organisations, charities and voluntary projects.
Do I need any previous experience?
No previous mentoring experience is required. The course introduces the main principles of safe and purposeful mentoring and is also useful as refresher training for existing mentors.
What will I learn on this course?
You will learn about mentoring models, trust, active listening, strengths-based conversations, goal setting, session structure, inclusive practice, boundaries, safeguarding, supervision and programme evaluation.
Will this course help with day-to-day mentoring practice?
Yes. The course provides practical guidance for planning sessions, agreeing goals, responding to missed appointments, managing communication and keeping the mentoring relationship focused on the young person’s development.
Does the course cover practical mentoring skills?
Yes. It covers listening, asking open questions, reviewing goals, offering appropriate challenge, agreeing manageable actions and adapting mentoring to the young person’s communication needs and circumstances.
Does it cover safeguarding and professional responsibilities?
Yes. The course explains confidentiality limits, safe one-to-one arrangements, approved communication, factual recording and how to respond when a young person shares a safeguarding concern. Learners should always follow the procedures applying to their organisation, setting and UK nation.
Can this training support peer and volunteer mentors?
Yes. The principles apply to paid staff, volunteers, peer mentors and near-peer mentors. The course also makes clear that all mentors require preparation, supervision and access to safeguarding advice.
Does the course explain how mentoring programmes should be managed?
Yes. It covers programme aims, recruitment, suitability checks, matching, training, supervision, feedback, endings and proportionate evaluation. It emphasises that effective mentoring depends on suitable organisational support as well as the individual mentor.
How long does the course take?
The course is self-paced and usually takes around 1 hour to complete.
Will I receive a certificate?
Yes. A certificate is issued after successful completion.
This Mentoring Young People course provides a clear foundation for delivering supportive, responsible and young person-led mentoring. It helps mentors understand what effective practice involves, where their role ends and how organisational procedures support safe and constructive relationships.
Enrol now to build your understanding of mentoring young people.
