We have had another successful and impactful year on the YAT Mentoring Programme in 2025, with a busy, action-packed 12 months seeing young people (and mentors too!) pushing themselves to learn new skills, try new things and take on different challenges.
Young people have had a great time doing a variety of activities and their positive attitude and openness to new experiences has really impressed us. This year’s sessions have included football matches in Swindon, learning to crochet, playing badminton, trying out archery, having their very first driving lesson, going horse riding, high ropes challenges, indoor skiing and even a trip to the Houses of Parliament! Plus many walks, board games, art sessions and cafe trips. The lower key sessions enable mentors and young people to build their relationships, spend time focusing on aims and planning their year together, and much needed one-to-one time talking and sharing concerns or worries with a kind, empathic, interested, and available adult.
For some young people, mentoring sessions have been a great way of helping them explore future aspirations and career opportunities. This year, mentors have organised visits to college open days, the local fire station and arranged meet ups with RAF personnel to find out about life in the military. One mentoring pair even worked together to find and secure the young person’s work experience placement at a local charity shop, where she helped throughout the summer.
By October, it was time to say goodbye to the young people who were now at the end of their mentoring relationships and had reached the culmination of their three year long adventure with YAT. We wanted to acknowledge this special moment with Celebration Events for the two original Adventure Programme groups, and invited young people, mentors and YAT staff previous and current to come along for an evening of games, pizza making, reflection and fun!
Our mentors support young people in a myriad of ways, depending on their personal interests and motivations, individual needs or challenges. At the end of the year we find out from the young people what they think about the programme, how they feel mentoring has helped them. Here are some of the things they identified this year:
“I think it’s a really good programme because it helps a lot of people, especially young people that struggle with dealing with their emotions, socialising and just finding who they are in themselves. There’s nothing bad about it, it’s all good!” Amy, 15 years
“My mentor has helped me to control my emotions because normally if I get really mad I’d get all loose, whereas now if I get really mad I just think, it’s just not worth it.” James, 15 years
“If there was stuff I couldn’t talk about at home I could talk to my mentor about it. I’m more confident – I can now do stuff without thinking ‘I can’t do this anymore’ because we tried lots of different things. I learnt I could be a lot more active from the mentor programme” Milo, 15 years
As another inspiring year draws to a close on the YAT Mentoring Programme, and a new one begins for our next cohort, we want to say a huge thank you to all our volunteer mentors for all their enthusiasm and commitment to making such a difference, and to all our young people for being brave, positive, committed and a whole lot of fun! We look forward to seeing what new adventures our new group gets up to in 2026!