Brightside

Brightside is a social mobility charity, creating inspirational mentoring relationships which help young people make confident and informed decisions about their future. We work in every region of England and have mentored over 100,000 young people since 2003.

We use our years of experience as the UK’s leading social enterprise for online mentoring to help organisations identify, reach and inspire young people. We find and train the best mentors, connect them with young people, and support them as they work together through our award-winning online programmes. Our mentoring introduces young people to opportunities from employers and universities so they can develop the knowledge and confidence they need to succeed. Our mentors get the satisfaction of making a real, positive difference to somebody else’s life.

Online mentoring can achieve many different goals including:

– Raising aspirations in schools
– Supporting students into Higher Education
– Providing insight into careers
– Teaching skills for work

Our online mentoring:

– is a high impact, cost-effective and flexible way to engage young people, who can send messages to their mentor anywhere at any time.
– matches young people with the mentor most appropriate for their interests, without being restricted by geography.
– is completely safe. All mentors are DBS-checked and our customised filter system screens all messages for inappropriate content, and is moderated by NSPCC-trained co-ordinators.
– benefits mentors. It fits around a busy schedule, requires no travel and develops communication skills.
– suits a generation often more comfortable asking questions online than meeting someone face-to-face, leading to more honest, open and fruitful mentoring relationships.