Do you want to mentor a young person? - Kilkenny Live

It has been shown that the presence of one good adult in a young person’s life has a positive influence on their mental health.

As part of the Mentoring Programme in Ossory Youth it can be seen first-hand the impact that one good adult can have on a young person’s life.

When a young person is struggling to cope with an issue, what can we do to help? That was the question Ossory Youth asked themselves in 2012 when more and more young people were looking for an individual and supportive space to work things out.

As an organisation, Ossory Youth wanted to provide an alternative support to traditional counselling for young people, as many were receiving this already.

Mentoring as an approach has been widely used in youth organisations across the globe to give young people a chance to develop a relationship with an adult, separate from parents and teachers, a person who is simply just there to listen and offer friendly and supportive advice.

Since setting up the mentoring programme it has provided much needed support and guidance to many young people on a one-to-one basis. This support was only possible by the dedication and commitment of adult volunteers throughout the years, who gave up an hour a week to provide a friendly listening ear to a young person trying to keep up with modern adolescent life.

“We’ve witnessed young people grow in confidence and self-belief over the years thanks to having someone to help them realise they always had the ability, it just needed to come to the surface,” said youth worker, Eilis Walklett.

Ossory Youth are now looking to increase the panel of mentors available.

“We are getting to the stage where we have a waiting list of young people seeking one to one support and we aren’t able to provide it straight away,” said Ms Walklett, the co-ordinator of the programme.

“We would like to be able to offer the mentoring at the time when it’s needed.

“That’s why we are making a fresh appeal to people in Kilkenny to try out volunteering as mentors for young people. We are inviting adults of all ages to contact us if they think they might like to try volunteering, even if they’re not sure what’s involved. We will talk it through with them without any commitment.”

Full training and support is provided on a ongoing basis to all mentors.
Anyone interested in finding out more, can contact Eilis Walklett on 087-9442112 or email ewalklett@ossoryouth.com
For more on Ossory Youth and the services they provide see OssoryYouth.ie