Suffolk Education Business Partnership

We are proud to announce the v involved project BeMMaD (Befriending and Mentoring Making a Difference) is now “REACH Achieved”, a quality standard from the Youth Action Network (YAN). Achieving the REACH standard is a requirement of all successful “v” funded applicants. Youth Action is defined as “young people taking an active role in the decision making on issues that effect them”. The REACH standard ensures the guiding principles of youth action; empowerment, purposeful engagement and inclusiveness, are being applied to v funded projects and teams nationally.

The process began shortly after the BeMMaD project started with a two day residential training course attended by BeMMaD project staff. This was an opportunity to evaluate, compare and share good practice between v funded organisations throughout the country. It was then up to individual projects to set about implementing the guidelines that would be assessed using live evidence from project activity.

The ideal scenario for a youth led project would be BeMMaD staff presenting themselves to young volunteers as a secretarial service, organising meetings, offering the occasional piece of advice or guidance and acting as advocates for young people’s projects that would benefit their communities. In practice, the level of support for young people would vary greatly from ready made opportunities to new youth led projects applying for their own funding.

The challenge is to find ways of working with young people aged 16-25 who feel their opinions have no value or make little difference. Working with partner organisation has been crucial in achieving this. A young person’s positive experience of a service will often be the reason for getting involved in a BeMMaD project. These shared experiences provide the background to support their peers and benefit their community. Examples would include, a young parents support group hosted by a children’s centre, previous users of a pupil referral unit returning to offer support, 6th form peer support projects and a young tenants association.

The basics of what you expect to find in a quality standard are covered by Suffolk EBPs’ existing governance, systems and policies and procedures. In this case the process confirmed what we are doing well. Many other key points of the standard were achieved by offering all volunteers Open College Network (OCN) accredited training at a variety of levels to prepare them for their support role and ensure a positive experience for all involved. Accredited training, along with award schemes offered by v, provides valuable recognition for young people to progress to new opportunities.

The BeMMaD project is entering its final year of current funding to run until March 2011 and we are looking to extend out REACH! If you would like more information or have an idea for project please do get in touch with Paul McCarthy on 01473 408062 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it