About Friendship Works

Working together to change lives

Friendship Works is the oldest children’s mentoring charity in the UK. We believe that all children deserve to have a supportive childhood and the opportunity to fulfil their potential. In 1977 we pioneered long-term mentoring to provide adult support for children across London who have missed out on the life chances some take for granted.

We work with families in the London Boroughs of Camden, Islington and Southwark. The children we help are between 5-16 years of age, and they all need more support in their life. They might face financial hardship, domestic violence, alcohol or drug misuse, social isolation, divorce or bereavement. They need additional adult guidance to help them develop and grow.

We work to give these children hope by providing an adult mentor who can encourage, listen and guide them through the most crucial stages of growing up. A mentor helps to support stable emotional and mental growth and wellbeing. We provide direct care to over 100 children who don’t have enough support in their lives and by 2013 we want to be helping more children across London.

It’s simple. We all need positive relationships and people around us to help us grow, achieve our potential, and cope with life’s challenges.

Our volunteers meet regularly with the child they support. They commit to an initial friendship of two years, because only long-term support can make a lifelong difference. Many become lifelong friends and our volunteers get to see the child they support grow up and how their friendship has made a difference to their life.

For the children we support, just being there counts. They start to see the possibilities in their future and become aware of the positive choices they could make. They can fulfil their potential.

Ultimately, they can rewrite the story of their life.

We are an independent charity and are funded entirely through voluntary income. For more information on our sources of funding, please visit our Fundraising section.

Because we provide direct support, we can see for ourselves the benefits and impact our volunteers have on the children they build long-term friendships with.

We prove that Friendship Works, every day. Support us and help make our services available to more vulnerable children.