School Mentor Programme
“It was nice to have someone who was interested in what I had to say.”
Catalyst Stockton were looking to create a film celebrating the achievements of a 3 year School Mentorship Programme, which has had some amazing impact on the young people and mentors involved so far. The film needed to have two purposes, the first was to celebrate and showcase the programme, and the positive influence it has had to date, and the second was to be usable as a funding bid film, so it could be included alongside applications where suitable. We needed to get to the core of the significance of the programme, and why it’s vital that it continues to run, so it can expand and reach even more volunteers and young people in the community.
Catalyst Stockton worked closely with a number of schools. They recruited, trained, and managed volunteers who would take part in the mentorship scheme. This was a really important detail that we needed to communicate, as ultimately it demonstrated to potential funders and resource stretched schools that this opportunity has been made possible because of the vital role Catalyst has played, taking all of the coordination and administration on. The mentoring programme currently operates within five schools and aims to provide a safe environment, where young people have someone they can speak to on a 1:1 regular basis. They work alongside their mentors to address any barriers they may have in school, increase their confidence, and identify future goals and aspirations.
Outputs:
Social Media Content
Website/Evaluation Film
Our kick off meeting with the Catalyst team was great - super productive and informative, enabling us to jump straight into the research phase. We picked up the phone and delved deep into conversations with the mentors and teachers involved, so that we could find out what impact this programme was having from the perspective of those who were working directly with the mentees. It was lovely to hear how actually the effects of this programme didn’t just stay with the mentees, and how the mentors were getting a lot out of it personally, as well as the teachers seeing increased engagement and positive behavior in the classroom as well.
Everyone we spoke to was an advocate for the success of the programme, including Stockton Council members, and it was important to Catalyst for us to feature this variety of voices.
So how do you take 14 people's valuable perspectives and condense that down into a 5 minute film? We knew that we needed to be intentional when interviewing with each person involved. With that in mind we sat down to read through all of the information we had gathered from our research calls and started to extract out the key nuggets that needed to be communicated. We then tailored our questions for each interviewee to draw out strong statements that would ultimately come together to paint the full picture in a succinct but meaningful way.
Something that was important to everyone involved, including us, was that we wanted the mentees to be comfortable around a camera. Considerations from our side to achieve that were included at the pre-production phase, ensuring that we asked mentor’s to bring along familiar activities and props that they often used with their mentees, so that whilst filming the mentoring sessions had a familiar feel for them. We also tailored the interview approach to each person offering an audio only option because it was important for us that everyone felt at ease.
A huge asset of the programme is that it gives young people the ability to speak to someone external, therefore helping them feel heard. Having some respite from their busy school schedules is also a big positive, as it gives them some breathing space and helps them re-focus on things that may otherwise become a little overwhelming. The fact that the students felt comfortable enough to share this with us and to be included in the film really helped tell the impact story, and we were so happy to find that all of the students involved felt at ease. We also really enjoyed having a laugh with them and had some great conversations about the impact they felt the mentor programme had had on their lives.
It was overwhelmingly apparent across the production process that both the mentors and mentees found the support beneficial, and it was lovely to hear that in many cases the 1:1 sessions gave students a confidence boost, improved their mental health, inspired them to pursue different hobbies, enjoy lessons, and build their self esteem. It was a meaty project for one of our first as ThroughFilm, spanning across three months and 5 shoots, but it was an absolute privilege to be involved and to have the opportunity to tell this story.
“Working with ThroughFilm was a great experience from our first conversations right up to signing the project off. The first meeting we had with them we were able to talk openly about the video and what we wanted; they then took away our aims and objectives and then came back with suggestions. When working in school they made all the staff, volunteers and students feel very comfortable with their professional, open, and reassuring approach to everyone involved. The video they have provided is evidence that they not only have done a very professional job, but they understood the importance of the mentoring that is happening in school and the impact that it is making to everyone involved.”
— Helen Burns, School Impact Officer at Catalyst Stockton