Mentoring for young people

Friends • Family • Education • Rehab • Hobbies & Interest • Work

 

 

Sustaining a spinal cord injury means that you are faced with many new challenges and different experiences.  These are sometimes hard to deal with, especially when you may feel that no-one knows what it’s like.  But you are not alone! 

 

 

 

Through Back-Up, we can give you the chance to see that you can be as active and social as anyone else.  Back-Up can pair you up with a trained mentor, someone who’s slightly older and has had their spinal cord injury for a few years, and has experienced many of the challenges you may be facing.  We can arrange for our mentor to speak with you regularly on the phone or meet up at your spinal unit to help you think through how to solve the challenges you’re facing.  You’ll also be able to ask your mentor about their experiences, as someone who’s been through it before. 

 

“His [mentor] independence gave me hope that I could be independent” (Mentee)

"I’d recommend young people to be mentored even if it’s only about little everyday things that are winding you up or you want to sort out a small problem (like mine) that has caused problems with other people.  Even if you just want a chat with someone who has been in a similar position to you.   Sometimes it can be really frustrating when you don’t have anyone to talk to that actually fully understands and knows what you’re on about!" (Mentee)

 

If you think having a mentor could benefit you, or you’d just like to find out more, please contact Eric on 020 8875 6728 or email

 

Laura's story

My name is Laura and I’m 14yrs old.  I was injured 3 years ago due to an operation on my back that went wrong and I’m now T4/T6 complete paraplegic. 

I was still in hospital by the time I was supposed to start High School.  Starting High school is a daunting thing without having the added extra of a wheelchair to your whole new academic world!  Year 7 was a pretty mixed up year for me.  Finding friends wasn’t the big thing for me then, settling into school and getting used to a new life in a wheelchair was.  By year 8, I was settled into school but didn’t really have many friends.  Everybody had split off into their groups and I didn’t know which way to go and a few pupils took a disliking to me because hey couldn’t see me, they could only see my wheelchair.  People were in their groups and didn’t have any interest in trying to befriend me.  Some are still like that but I wouldn’t want to be their friends anyway!

I told Eric and Sam at Back-Up about this problem and they recommended me to have a mentor from Back-Up.  I thought this was a great idea because I would be able to talk to someone who had been in a similar situation to me and ask them for advice about what I should do to help improve how things were going at school.

My Back-Up mentor was really cool and we had lots of fun chatting over the phone about our experiences and day to day life.  My mentor had similar experiences to me when she was at school because she was injured at a similar age and hads a similar type of personality to me which makes a big difference on how people around you act towards you.  I found her calls really helpful and she phoned me once a week to chat about how my week had been.  Sometimes if something hadn’t gone as smooth as I want it to go, she helped me to sort it out and it really boosted my confidence.

We decided that the biggest problem between me and some of my peers at school was that they donn’t understand. Not all of them know WHY I’m in a wheelchair and are scared of asking why, which they shouldn’t be. The more people understand you, the more chance you have of getting on with them and not having a barrier between you that stops you from communicating.  I’m hoping to be able to educate my friends about my injury by doing my presentation.  I also want them to know that I don’t just live indoors all the time I actually get out there and do things.  I want them to understand more about my actual ability not my disability.

 

The Back-Up Trust Mentoring programme is supported by

Harris Cartier LLP Solicitors

 

 

 

 

 

Courses/more info:

E-forum
Mentoring
Multi-Activity Weeks
Ski Courses
Young Person Handbook