Peer mentoring programme shows power of youth-led support

Bridges Project’s groundbreaking Listening Peers peer mentoring programme has demonstrated that the ones best placed to support young people are sometimes young people themselves.

Launched in 2021, Listening Peers sees young people with lived experience of disadvantage volunteer as Mentors for other young people going through similar issues to what they have experienced. Through regular sessions, the Mentors help them open up, increase their confidence and overcome challenges.

The programme has just gone from strength to strength since its inception. Between 1 November 2022 and 1 November 2024, 36 Mentors supported a total of 98 mentees aged 13 to 25 from across East Lothian.

Even though Listening Peers was originally designed for Mentors to help other young people through informal activities, the young volunteers have gone above and beyond to help their mentees. Several of the Mentors, some as young as 16, have advocated for their mentees at Child Planning Meetings and tutored them to help them with their schoolwork. There have been multiple examples of these interventions leading to reengagement with school for young people who had not been attending school for years.  

Neil Maclean, the Coordinator of the Listening Peers programme, believes that the programme is able to make such an impact because young people are at the heart of how it functions.

He said: “Mentors share their lived experience and are able to say: ‘I know what it’s like, I have come through it and know what you can do to come through it too’. They are more relatable because of their age and where they are in their lives.”

Mikhail Scott, 18, one of the Mentors, agrees.

He said: “Listening Peers is not like any other support services as it’s specifically for young people by young people. It’s very valuable as you can relate to each other a bit more. That’s why it’s so needed.”

One of the young people currently being supported by a Listening Peers Mentor is Tyler Fisher. The 13-year-old has not been attending school for 18 months. Nevertheless, once his 16-year-old Mentor Baillie Watson sat down with him to help him do schoolwork, he managed to complete a whole National 3 Modern Studies unit in three hours.

Tyler said: “It’s just been so different to school and everything else. Baillie has helped me feel more comfortable talking to people and helped reduce my social anxiety.”

Baillie also knows how it is it to benefit from mentoring from Listening Peers. Before training to become a Mentor, she herself received support from the programme as a mentee.

She said: “I came to Bridges Project with crippling social anxiety but after receiving mentoring support, I became so much more comfortable speaking to people.”

When she realised how much her own Mentor had helped her, Baillie decided to give back.

“It helped me in so many ways so I wanted others to have the same experience as I had. Being able to help others like me as a Mentor makes me feel good,” said the 16-year-old.  

One of the main funders of the Listening Peers programme is the Partnership Drugs Initiative (PDI), a partnership between the Scottish Government and Corra Foundation.

In a statement, Corra Foundation said: “It’s been a real privilege for Corra to see how thoughtfully the Listening Peers programme has continued to develop and expand its reach. It has an incredible impact on young lives and is a testament to what’s possible when young people’s own voices, aspirations and considerable expertise are valued.”