Cuts put mentoring program in doubt

Funding cuts have forced the Future Leaders Mentoring in School program into limbo.

The mentoring program was launched in 2012 to foster relationships between community volunteer mentors and local high school students and provide guidance on career opportunities once graduating from school.

Mentors with experience in certain fields were matched to students according to their career preferences, and together they created an individual pathway plan.

More than 130 students from Strathalbyn Christian College, Nagle Catholic College and Geraldton Senior College and Follow the Dream students completed the program in the past three years.

The School Business Community Partnership Brokers’ funding for the program expired at the end of 2014.

Future Leaders Group president Emma Howell said the group was working on a strategic plan for the next five years to source funding for the mentoring program, and other programs, during that period.

She said the program was a priority for the Future Leaders Group moving forward.

“We are still a relatively small group and much of what we do is voluntary. Accordingly, we need to determine strategies and priorities for our projects firstly and then seek funding partners to pursue these, ” she said.

She said the Mentoring in School Program had been a great development project and achieved excellent outcomes.

“Future Leaders started this program because we felt there was a gap, ” she said.

“The program aims to reach students who are not ‘at risk’ or ‘high achievers’, but are somewhere in the middle, who often miss out on extra opportunities and assistance.”

Ms Howell said this was where the group felt they were when in school, and if they’d had the benefit of a mentoring program it would have made a world of difference to the transition from school to the workforce.

She said the mentoring relationships provided young people in the community with a realistic understanding of their preferred career, and the pathway towards achieving that goal.

“Some students discover their initial idea actually isn’t for them, and they work with their mentor to investigate other options, ” she said.

She said there were opportunities for other organisations, government or private, to partner with the Future Leaders to resurrect the program.