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The Together Programme is a school to school mentoring programme.

It connects senior students years 12 & 13, (the mentors) with primary students years 3 & 4, who are affected by imprisonment or are ultra high risk and would benefit from a mentoring relationship.

Through this mentoring relationship we aim to skill mentors as the change agents of the future and prepare mentees to be future leaders.

Currently a programme is being run between St Peters College, Epsom (the sending school) and Rongomai Primary School Otara (the host school) with plans to roll out a further programme in Christchurch 2013.

The mentoring is designed to:

  • Host School: Strengthen the child’s ability to achieve their full potential despite hardship
  • Sending School: Build a service orientation by upskilling and educating students to be the future and current agents of change. In parallel expose students through debrief process, of their society’s part in marginalization.

 
Goals

  • Educate and support mentors to understand the issues for children affected by the NZ Justice system
  • Equip mentors to be advocates for the rights of children of prisoners in their schools and communities
  • Develop an ability to compassionately process and respond to social issues. Key values in developing this are flexibility, compassion, patience, tolerance, stickability and consistency.

Desired Outcomes

Mentee

  • Improved academic performance (Report cards)
  • Increased number of homework and in-class assignments handed in (School records)
  • Reduced serious school infractions such as disciplinary referrals, fighting and suspensions (School records)
  • Improved emotional / psychological wellbeing (SDQ Tool)
  • Develop problem solving skills (SDQ)
  • Increased school attendance (Attendance registers)


Mentor

  • Build rapport and trust with the mentee where the child feels confident to discuss problems they may be experiencing at school (SDQ)
  • Be a positive role model (SDQ)
  • Understand boundaries and keeping participants safe (A small test)
  • Skills developed in mentoring and academic coaching (Youth mentoring relationship tool)
  • Increased self awareness and development capacity to feedback, reflect and critique (supervision)
  • Developed capacity to investigate and combat injustices in the school, family and community (community response projects)


Community

  • Build community between two unique schools to undertake a service programme
  • Express the care and concern of society’s marginalized through active service
  • Be part of social change through advocacy and education outcomes


Pillars Role

Although the schools own the programme, Pillars provides an oversight to ensure the programme is run in according to safe practices and international standards.

Pillars provides:

  • Orientation training and specific training as required for mentors
  • Ongoing professional supervision
  • Mentor Guides and Role Descriptions
  • Mentee Guides
  • The development of policy and processes around the mentoring matches
  • Support and manual for the Mentoring Coordinator
  • Help Desk for expert advice
  • Resources eg. www.justus.org.nz


If the programme is being run in South Auckland or Christchurch, Pillars will provide support for the families of the mentees where required. For enquiries to run a programme at your school or institution please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.