Our work

MentorED Charitable Trust was established in 2017 to provide more support for children facing challenges at home which impact on their school life. 

The Trust was set up in 2017 to provide more support, opportunities and advocacy to children who have experienced early childhood adversity, or Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as:

  • Poverty

  • Poor quality or no stable housing

  • Parental/caregiver mental health and or addiction

  • Exposure to family harm

  • Experience of neglect and abuse

  • Family member in prison

  • Being in the care of the State

ACEs cause stress for children which impact on a child's ability to feel safe and therefore learn.

We know that children who have experienced complex trauma may have unmet needs. As adults supporting these children, it is important that we create a feeling of safety and support of these unmet needs before we can hope to address learning.

Our mahi involves supporting children in a Trauma and Attachment Informed way.

The presence of a trusted, consistent adult in a child's life provides relational connection (attunement) which we know from the research can buffer against the impact of ACEs.

What we do

The Trust's purpose is to provide mentor support, resources and opportunities aimed at improving wellbeing and engagement with education. Some children face many day-to-day challenges and by donating our time, resources and creating opportunities we can make a big difference to their future.

Every child has different needs and MentorED works with schools to provide fun, educational activities to meet those needs through our in school mentoring programme. For children with higher emotional needs it can be difficult for them to have their needs met; a problem we have heard time and time again from teachers.

Our mentoring programme takes a research based PACE approach to create safety and connection to improve ability to learn.

 “The confidence that my students returned to class with was fantastic!
I also LOVED seeing them so excited to get to their sessions each week.”

- School feedback