At Youth Unity, we strongly believe in creating opportunities for young people not only to receive support, but to help shape how that support is delivered. One of the things we are most proud of this year is the incredible initiative shown by one of our young mentors, who, at just 23 years old, has designed a full set of structured mentoring frameworks to support young people across different stages of their lives.

These frameworks were developed to bring consistency, clarity, and clear end goals to mentoring relationships, helping young people understand what they are working towards and how each session supports their personal development. They also give schools, parents, and partners confidence that mentoring is not just supportive, but purposeful, measurable, and safely delivered.

What Do the Frameworks Cover?

The frameworks span multiple areas of need and age groups, including:

• Year 6–7 Transition Mentoring – supporting confidence, emotional wellbeing, coping strategies, and school readiness during the move from primary to secondary school, with structured 6-, 8- and 12-week pathways and clear outcomes around belonging, peer relationships, and engagement.

Yr 6-7 transition

• Emotional Regulation and Conflict Resolution Mentoring – a trauma-informed, strengths-based approach for young people aged 11–18 who struggle with managing emotions, triggers, and relationships, with defined eligibility criteria and clear safeguarding boundaries.

Emotional and Regulation Mentor…

• Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing (Early Help) Mentoring – focused on low to moderate emotional needs, helping young people build coping strategies, confidence, and healthy help-seeking behaviours, while clearly identifying when specialist or clinical services are required.

Youth Unity Mentoring framework…

• Life Skills and Independence Mentoring (16–25) – supporting young people to build practical skills such as time management, budgeting, self-care, and problem-solving to prepare for independent living and adulthood.

Life skills and Independence

• Employment and Training Mentoring – helping young people aged 16–24 develop CVs, interview skills, career awareness, and realistic progression plans into education, training, or employment.

Each framework includes:

• Clear eligibility and exclusion criteria
• Defined session structures
• Adaptable 6-, 8- and 12-week pathways
• Outcomes that can be measured and reviewed
• Built-in reflection and planned endings, supporting healthy transitions rather than dependency

Blending Digital Tools with Relationship-Based Practice

Alongside Youth Unity’s accredited training programmes and safeguarding frameworks, these mentoring pathways also integrate the Ambition Project (https://mynd-app.com/), which we have permission to use as part of our delivery.

The Ambition Module supports young people to:

• Track goals and progress
• Reflect between sessions
• Build self-awareness and motivation
• Stay engaged with their development outside of face-to-face mentoring

This blended approach allows us to combine trusted relationships with practical digital tools, helping young people build skills that transfer into everyday life, education, and work.

Young People Supporting Young People, With Professional Backing

What makes this even more powerful is that these frameworks were created by someone who understands, first-hand, the realities young people face today. This is a clear example of youth-informed practice, where lived experience, professional standards, and safeguarding expectations come together.

At the same time, these frameworks sit within Youth Unity’s wider organisational systems:

• Case management and safeguarding oversight
• Professional supervision
• Accredited training and continuous development

This ensures that while young people are helping shape support, it is always delivered safely, ethically, and in line with statutory expectations.

Growing Talent From Within

We are incredibly proud to support the growth and development of our own staff and mentors. Creating space for initiative like this reflects our wider commitment to:

• Building future youth work leaders
• Supporting professional development
• Valuing innovation at every level of the organisation

This work shows what can happen when young professionals are trusted, supported, and given the opportunity to lead not just in delivery, but in designing the systems that support young people to thrive.