The Youth Music Mentors programme, part of the Government’s Respect Agenda, has been making progress in the last few months. All of the ten delivery partners have recruited and trained Respect Co-ordinators, adult and peer mentors, and mentees, and mentoring activity began in May 2007.

This is an important programme for Youth Music and robust monitoring and evaluation will document the long lasting positive effect of mentoring. This is centered on an innovative online tool which enables mentors to input both quantitative and qualitative data in relation to their mentee, including video clips, photos and audio clips.  The tool generates reports about the impact of the mentoring sessions and outcomes of the programme.

In addition to the online tool, an independent evaluator, Dr Mark Hughes, has developed five case studies which aim to take an in-depth look at the mentor/mentee relationship. Both methods will be combined in order to produce a comprehensive evaluation resource which aims to highlight the successes of the programme and also identify sustainable models for replication.

Youth Music Mentors is a national mentoring programme to help tackle antisocial behaviour and improve the life chances of young people in 14 Respect areas.

Funded by the DCMS, the programme involves young people in music making and provides one-to-one and group mentoring sessions with peers, musicians and the music industry. The project is being delivered by ten partners:

• Sound Futures (Birmingham)
• Artworks (Bradford)
• REMIX (Bristol)
• Music 4U (Kingston-upon-Hull)
• Gallery 37+ (Leeds)
• MZONE (Liverpool)
• Sound Connections (London: Camden, Hackney, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets)
• GMMAZ (Manchester)
• Nottingham Music Service
• Sound it Out (Sandwell)

Visit www.respect.gov.uk for more information