At ReachOut, we believe that with the right support every young person can reach their full potential. ReachOut is a mentoring charity that works in under-resoruced areas, working with young people to raise aspirations, develop their character and build attainment.
We run weekly after school ReachOut projects working with either primary or secondary school students. Our sessions are fun and engaging, involving both group activities and one-to-one discussions. Our volunteer mentors are paired with a young person each, who they work with every week over the course of the school year, helping them to develop their character, exceed their goals and grow in confidence.
We run 3 different projects during term time - ReachOut Club, ReachOut Academy and ReachOut+. ReachOut Club runs in primary schools for 18 sessions between 3.30 and 5.30pm. ReachOut Academy runs in secondary schools for 26 sessions between 6.00 and 8.00pm, and ReachOut+ runs in the evenings to help 16-19-year olds transition from secondary school into adulthood. We run sessions online and in-person, so there is something for everyone!
The programme offers so much to young people who are in need of a postive role model, helping to raise their social and academic confidence, develop their character and raising their aspirations!
Our Character Journey teaches the young people what our four character strengths are, helps them choose to pursue them, to practice them every week, and reflect on their successes and challenges. Our mentees set regular goals with their mentors to help them strive towards their desired outcomes, and ultimately help them build good habits that will support decision making. Young people have time to talk about school, family, friendships, worries, relationships etc. – this is time that mentors and mentees have together, and whilst we structure a small portion of it the rest can be used by the mentor and mentee as desired to talk about whatever they wish to discuss.
Young people and mentors reported that 90% of young people improved their academic confidence and 85% of young people improved their social confidence.
Here is what some of our young people had to say about their experience at ReachOut:
“ReachOut has made me a better person mentally and physically. I have enjoyed having a mentor; she is kind, helpful and trustworthy. My schoolwork is better, my behaviour is better and I enjoyed socialising in football.”
“I liked how everyone had their goals here and our mentors helped them to achieve it for example my mentor Charlotte helped me to overcome my fear of being really bad at maths and I will be forever grateful.”
Everybody is welcome to volunteer with ReachOut! We are just looking for people who are committed, enthusiastic and want to make a difference!
It doesn't matter if you've never worked with young people before, we will make sure you are fully trained before you start volunteering with us.
At ReachOut we are focused on helping our young people build good character. We have four simple, powerful character strengths; Fairness, Self-Control, Staying Power and Good Judgement.
Staying Power – resilience, grit, the ability to stick at something, to honour commitments, to see tasks through to the end.
Self-Control – the ability to keep emotions in check and to choose to act (or not to act) in a certain way despite how we may feel.
Fairness – to treat others with respect and empathy, honouring rights and responsibilities, and being honest.
Good Judgement – the ability to consider consequences and make decisions that benefit both ourselves AND those affected by our choice.
