How to become a mentor or befriender
Volunteering as a mentor in the UK means applying to a scheme that already exists rather than starting one, and the route from application to a first meeting has six steps and takes 6 to 12 weeks, most of it references, criminal record checks and training rather than anyone deciding about you.
Someone in the UK who has decided to volunteer as a mentor or a befriender and wants the route, the order of the steps, and how long each one really takes.
Your decision. Knowing it is six to twelve weeks to a first meeting, and twelve months after that for youth mentoring, is what stops a yes turning into a withdrawal at week ten.
Volunteers apply expecting to start next week, hear nothing for a month while references and checks move, assume they were rejected, and drop out during the wait. Schemes lose most applicants in that gap and rarely say so.
Once matched, the ask is about an hour a week, and for youth mentoring it is 12 months.
The six steps from application to first meeting
To get from application to a first meeting, work through six steps in order. None can usefully be hurried, and a scheme offering to skip one is telling you how it treats everyone else.
- Find a scheme running the type of volunteering you want. Youth mentoring runs through schools, youth services, local charities and local authority teams. Befriending runs through community charities, faith organisations, hospices and national charities.
- Apply on the scheme’s own form. Expect questions about availability, reasons, relevant experience and any previous work with children or adults at risk. Answer the availability question honestly rather than optimistically.
- Give two referees who are not family. References are the slowest step and the one you control least. Warn both referees first, and give the coordinator a phone number as well as an email, because most delay here is unanswered email.
- Complete the criminal record check for your nation. That is a DBS check in England and Wales, PVG scheme membership in Scotland, or an AccessNI check in Northern Ireland. The scheme initiates it and you supply identity documents.
- Complete the scheme’s induction training. Induction happens before you meet anyone, and it is free. It covers safeguarding, the reporting route, boundaries, confidentiality and its limits, lone working and recording.
- Be matched, and meet with the coordinator present. Matching is a decision about two people, not a queue position, so a good scheme takes its time and explains the pairing it made.
On the first step, befriending is run by national charities and by a much larger number of local organisations, so both are worth looking at. This site does not rate or list individual schemes.
| Step | Who does the work | Typical elapsed time |
|---|---|---|
| Application and screening | You, then the coordinator | 1 to 2 weeks |
| References | Your two referees | 2 to 4 weeks |
| Criminal record check | DBS, Disclosure Scotland or AccessNI | Varies, and no scheme can promise a date |
| Induction training | The scheme | 1 to 3 sessions |
| Matching and first meeting | The coordinator | 1 to 4 weeks |
| Whole route | Everyone | 6 to 12 weeks |
Criminal record checks are free of charge for volunteers who meet the DBS definition of a volunteer, though an umbrella body may charge the scheme an admin fee. Fees for paid roles are set by the disclosure body and change, so check the current figure with the DBS, Disclosure Scotland or AccessNI.
The real commitment once you are matched
Once matched, the commitment is an hour a week and a year, and the year is the part that needs defending.
Youth mentoring asks for twelve months for an evidenced reason. Matches ending before three months are associated with outcomes worse than no match at all, reported by Grossman and Rhodes in 2002, which means a short match is not a small version of a long one, it is a different and worse intervention. Befriending is more flexible: an hour a week or an hour a fortnight, commonly six to twelve months, often open-ended with an older person. Telephone befriending is a weekly call of 20 to 45 minutes, short enough to fit around shift work and long enough to be a relationship rather than a welfare check.
Befriending an older person, and befriending by telephone
Befriending an older person is the shortest route into this volunteering, and telephone befriending shorter still, because neither carries the twelve-month youth mentoring ask. The screening is not lighter. A scheme placing you in someone’s home is placing you alone with an adult who may be at risk, so expect the same references, the same check, and specific training on lone working, on capacity, and on what you do when nobody answers the door.
National charities and small local ones both run these services, and local is not the weaker option. What separates them is coordination, not size. One full-time coordinator can hold roughly 30 to 50 active matches, fewer where referrals are complex, and that ratio tells you more about the support you will get than the organisation’s name does.
Mentoring at work is a different thing with the same word on it
Mentoring at work is not volunteering in the sense this page describes, though the skills overlap almost completely. A workplace programme runs inside one employer, the mentee is a colleague, the agenda is a career, the framework is employment law rather than child protection, and it is normally part of a paid role. Doing it is a good argument for becoming a community mentor afterwards, because you will already have learned the hardest habit, which is not solving the problem in front of you.
The volunteer applying
- States real availability at application, not hoped-for availability.
- Discloses relevant history at self-declaration rather than leaving it to the check.
- Completes induction in full before the first meeting.
- Commits to the stated match length, or declines the match.
The young person or person waiting
- Is not told a volunteer is coming until that volunteer is cleared and trained.
- Has a say in the match, and can ask for a different one.
- Is told the expected length of the match at the first meeting.
- Is not put back on the list because a volunteer withdrew during recruitment.
The scheme owes the applicant an answer at every stage, including the stages where nothing is happening, and owes the person waiting an honest account of when a match is realistic. Keeping an applicant in silence for eight weeks and keeping a referred child in expectation for eight weeks are the same failure, and it is a coordination failure rather than a volunteer one.
A scheme offers to match you while the check is still outstanding
Refuse, and ask for the offer in writing. Do not meet the person until clearance and induction are both confirmed complete, and do not accept a supervised half-measure unless the coordinator has written down who is supervising and how. The coordinator holds the referral, tells the referrer no cleared volunteer is available yet, and records the decision, because the pressure producing this offer is a waiting list rather than a view about you.