younus – Mentoring for Children, Youth and Parents
About this good practice
Children and families in Austria face challenges that reduce chances in life. More than 320,000 children in Austria are at risk of poverty and exclusion. Furthermore, 25% of children and adolescents experience mental health issues. These factors disproportionately affect families facing social disadvantages and reinforce social inequality.
Our mentoring programs enable and empower children and parents in disadvantaged situations. Mentoring is an easily accessible, short-term way to have a person by your side, to promote mental health and informal learning and thus to create opportunities.
In our 1:1 mentoring programs, one child or parent in challenging life situations is matched with one volunteer mentor. Our mentors spend 2 hours per week with their mentee over the course of 6 or12 months, depending on the program. They give time and attention, support their mentees individually and focus on strengths and potential. A trained expert on the younus team supports each tandem (mentor and mentee) throughout the mentoring relationship.
Mentoring has a proven impact on mentees as well as volunteers. Mentees experience a sense self-efficacy, develop self-confidence and get to know new perspectives. Mentors take over responsibility, train their communication and intercultural skills and contribute to social cohesion and solidarity.
Thus, mentors and mentees benefit from the practice as well as parents, family members, friends and the community connected to the mentee.
Resources needed
younus is funded by public grants, local and international foundations and corporations, as well as private donors. A full list of our supporters can be found on our website. We have a team of mentoring coordinators for our programs in 5 Austrian regions.
Evidence of success
1. We reach families in challenging circumstances through well-established partnerships, demonstrated through a survey of WU Wien among our participating families.
2. Studies have shown that mentees develop self-confidence, experience new perspectives and enhance their mental wellbeing. 85% of mentees are supported for one year and benefit from 90 hrs of individual support.
3. Volunteers experience a sense of contribution, develop social skills and contribute to connection in society.
Potential for learning or transfer
We focus on reaching parents and children from an early age and provide support through mentoring. Mentoring is easily accessible and provides flexible and individual support through a volunteer. It is available on a short-term basis and can be an entry point to participate in other support structures. Parent mentoring presents an opportunity to support parents who may feel isolated and overwhelmed by providing them with a convenient and adaptable resource. When we start early in the life of a family, we can prevent mental health issues from developing further and having negative consequences on the children. We are convinced that the hybrid/flexible approach of parent mentoring can be expanded to serve more families in need. We have transferred mentoring programs to four regions in Austria and into different settings through cooperations with schools, kindergartens and education institutions. This can be further transferred within the social and education sector in Austria and Europe.
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