Referral Agencies

Thinking of making a referral?

The SMASH Youth Project is a charitable organisation that aims to match volunteer mentors with vulnerable young people in order to help them work towards agreed goals in the area of personal development over the space of a year.

We also invite young people to take part in informal activities outside of the home. Our ability to match young people with a mentor depends on both the availability and suitability of the mentors with the Project at any given time.   There is always a waiting list, which can sometimes stretch into months, however we do adhere to match the young person as soon as possible with the right mentor.

By referring to SMASH you are agreeing to liaise with the Project for the duration of the young persons involvement with the programme.

As well as the above, when deciding whether or not to refer a young person to the Mentoring Programme, you will need to consider a number of factors.

The young person should be between 13 and 18 years old.

There must be a voluntary commitment and willingness on the part of the young person to accept the offer of a mentor. You will need to discuss with the young person how they think they would benefit from having a mentor.  Mentoring invariably fails if the young person feels they have to agree to accept a mentor – therefore, it must be their choice!

The young person must be able to communicate verbally and engage in a relationship in which the core activity is conversation.

• The young person must have some motivation to work towards change and an interest in identifying realistic and achievable goals (within our Project aims) that a mentor can support and encourage them to reach.
• Willingness to participate in group activities and a possible residential activity weekend with other young people and volunteers (however this aspect is not a requirement)
• You will need to make us aware of any potential risk factors.
• The project should not be seen as providing respite care or just “activities” for young people. SMASH is a SELF HELP project and we expect all young people involved with us to be actively engaged in a programme of change.

You can check whether or not your client is right for referral to SMASH by using our useful referral checker. Just click on the link below.

smash-referral-checker.xls

If your client looks right for referral, then you can download the referral pack from this site. If you would like to talk to us before you do, please do not hesitate to give us a call, we will be more than pleased to help.