Warmth with boundaries.
Mentoring is a professional relationship, not a peer friendship. Clear expectations about communication and appropriate settings help protect the young person and the practitioner.
A voice that is heard.
Children should understand how to raise a concern and know that their perspective matters. Trust must never depend on keeping an unsafe secret.
Accountability around the work.
Recruitment checks are one part of a wider safeguarding culture. Training, supervision and clear reporting routes remain important throughout delivery. Parents and commissioning professionals should be able to ask how these arrangements work in practice.
From the ECNM journal
This reading edition adapts our published work. Explore the original article below.