Background The University of Brighton Social Mentoring Network began with a pilot project called ‘Navigating Health in the Community’ (NHIC) initiated in 2003 to investigate the gaps and opportunities in the Brighton and Hove area for mentoring services for people with Asperger syndrome. This project was initiated by the social mentoring network in collaboration with a local campaigning group called Assert. The project was supported and sponsored by the University of Brighton and Cupp and based within the Institute of Postgraduate Medicine. The initiative culminated in four related developments:

The NHIC report prepared by Jones (2004) and edited by Gill (2005) confirmed the gap in support services for individuals with Asperger syndrome and noted the rich diversity of mentoring activities; identified the need to clarify the concept of social mentoring and scope the range of mentoring in the field. The report confirmed that a vulnerable group of young people and adults of working age with Asperger syndrome within the Brighton and Hove area were experiencing multiple disadvantages in the market place; in education; in the health and social care sector; in the uptake of social and recreational, pre-vocational and post vocational training opportunities.
As a result, a social mentoring project, ASPIRE, was established, funded through the Brighton and Hove European Union EQUAL programme and co-ordinated by Brighton and Hove Community Initiatives. This project was designed to address the education and employment gap through the provision of mentoring support for young people and adults with Asperger syndrome by assisting with access to, retention of and progression within local education, training and employment and vocational programmes.
At around the same time alongside the establishment of Aspire, a parallel development took place and a Social Mentoring Network was established in 2005 at the University of Brighton to organise a programme of regular afternoon workshops the purpose of which was to bring together academics, managers and practitioners from a range of local voluntary sector mentoring agencies to share experiences, promote understanding of the nature of mentoring activities and identify and encourage best practice. This created reflective space for the development of a dialogue between different stake holding interests enabling a rich cross fertilisation of ideas, the identification of a community of practice and the sharing of good practice developments. Over time a strong sense of collective identity has developed and a consensus has emerged of a recognizable but diverse practice community bound by a shared commitment to the alleviation of disadvantage and the promotion of social inclusion through the practice of mentoring. A second tranche of funding under the Brighton and Hove EQUAL European Funding programme in 2006 secured the establishment of a Social Mentoring Research Group (SMRG). This group’s composition mirrored the earlier NHIC partnership but broadened and strengthened it by the addition of representatives from the School of Nursing and Midwifery (UOB), University of Sussex, Southeast Region Mentoring and Befriending Foundation and a representative number of voluntary sector mentoring projects. The initial aims of the SMRG were to examine the benefits of mentoring for young and older adults, share learning, identify examples of innovative practice and disseminate this knowledge to a local and national audience. The SMRG research strategy was to take a participatory research approach within which we undertook an exploratory review of the literature in order to clarify the terms in use and to scope the range of activities which fell under the terms which have common currency but which are often used interchangeably in the contemporary field of practice: mentoring, social mentoring and befriending. This literature review was then subjected to practitioner scrutiny and validation through the cycles of SMRG meetings, the parallel workshops and the two local and national conferences.
The resulting knowledge synthesis led to a clarification of the terms, an identification of some of their distinguishing characteristics and their applications to a diverse range of vulnerable groups and across a broad range of policy and practice domains – education, health and social care, employment and commerce.

Since completing its EQUAL research brief in 2008, the SMRG is concentrating on sustaining the Social Mentoring Network Workshop programme which is disseminating what has been learned and is continuing with the provision of a twice yearly reflective space for the reciprocal exchange and cross fertilization of theoretical knowledge and evidence from practice which will enhance, enrich and sustain our collective enterprise.

Aims of the network The network is now hosted by CUPP and has the following aims:

To provide a forum for the continuation of a dialogue between practitioners, policy makers, managers and members of the beneficiary groups. To promote the practice of social mentoring where appropriate. To promote further research and disseminate research findings. To provide advice and consultancy to individuals and organisations regarding social mentoring.

Links to the network's affiliated organisations

Befriending Scheme of Care for the Carers: www.cftc.org.uk , http://www.cftc.org.uk/index.php?page=413

Ruth Morris, Mentoring and Befriending Foundation www.mandbf.org.uk

Prince's Trust www.princes-trust.org.uk

Tim Moulds, Sussex Pathways, sussexpathways@googlemail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.sussexpathways.org.uk

Ollie Glass http://ollieglass.com/peer-learning.html