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Friendship Works has provided mentoring support to vulnerable children between 5 and 16 years of age for over 30 years. We work closely with social services, parents, schools, other charities, and local authorities to take referrals and manage our mentoring relationships.
Friendship Works is a member of the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, which allows us to share good practice about how to make mentoring really work. We are also a member of Children England.
It’s easy to find out if we can help you. If you know a child who has experienced loss, separation, or needs additional adult support in their life, and you are their parent/carer or you work with them in a professional capacity such as their teacher, social worker or other professional, simply go through the checklist below to make sure they fulfil the criteria. There is an information sheet you can download at the bottom of the page, along with a referral form for you to fill in and send to us. If you’re not sure what to do and you need to speak to someone, we’d be happy to help. Please call us on 020 7485 0900.
Our referral criteria:
- Children must have experienced loss or separation, be socially isolated, or have missed out on some part of childhood and be in need of additional adult support and alternative experiences
- We take referrals for children from the age of 5 up to and including 16 years old
- You may request support for more than one child in a family (please fill out a referral for each child)
- Children must be from single-parent families, or a home with only one main carer present
- Children must live in the Boroughs of Camden or Islington, or attend a school that we work with in Southwark (we have a partnership with Keyworth Primary School and the Walworth Academy in Southwark)
- Both the child and parent must actively want to have a mentor through Friendship Works, understand that it is voluntary for them, and want to take part
- The family and home environment must be safe for our volunteers to go into, with no ongoing domestic violence, alcohol or drug misuse (although we do take referrals where parents are on supervised drug and alcohol treatment programmes)
- We do not take referrals for children who are in foster care, residential care, or other settings where the Local Authority has assumed responsibility for their care.
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