Mentoring Works Programme

Established in 1996, ELBA’s Mentoring Works programme matches Year 10 and Sixth Form students to volunteer business mentors working in the City of London and Canary Wharf.

The programme is open to all young people who must self-refer; it is a voluntary programme undertaken in their own time. Mentees are matched to mentors and travel to the mentor’s place of work each fortnight, for one-hour sessions over the course of a ten-month programme.  Mentees are encouraged to set their own individual objectives with their mentor but are given guidance to work within the strategic aims of the programme and structure sessions around the Skills Builder Universal Framework that they use to evaluate the programme.  

Objectives of Mentoring Works:

• Introduce young people to the world of work
• Raise aspiration
• Enable young people to identify career goals
• Increase employability through development of key skills and competencies – including use of the Skills Builder Framework.

Mentoring Works enables students to focus on developing the increasingly essential core and transferable qualities needed to be ready for work. The adoption of Skills Builder as a national framework allows mentees to become familiar with how employers think and talk about essential skills as they progress through education and into employment.