What Makes a Befriending Service Successful?

Lessons from 24 Years of Supporting Young People Through Befriending

By Janet Simm, Young People’s Befriending Co-Ordinator, Praxis Care

After 24 years of running Praxis Care’s Young People’s Befriending Service, people often ask me what makes a befriending service successful.

Some think it’s about recruiting enough volunteers. Others think it’s having the right training, policies or processes in place.

Those things matter, but what I’ve learned over the years is that successful befriending is built on two things: strong foundations and strong relationships.

Get both right and the impact can be life-changing.

Build the Foundations First

You need a strong foundation otherwise it won’t survive.

If I was advising another organisation about setting up a befriending service, that would be my first piece of advice.

Before you even think about recruiting volunteers, you need to have the basics in place. You need clear policies, a comprehensive training package, a robust vetting process and a referral pathway that helps ensure the right young people are accepted onto the scheme. You also need to understand who the service is for, what they want from it and what kind of volunteers you are looking to recruit.

When I was setting up Praxis Care’s Young People’s Befriending Service, I had to put everything into boxes in my head and focus on one thing at a time. If I looked at the whole picture at once, it felt overwhelming. Looking back, breaking it down into manageable pieces was probably the only way I could have done it.

Getting those foundations right doesn’t just help the service run well. It also gives volunteers the clarity and confidence they need to do the role effectively.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is how many misconceptions people have about befriending. Some think they’re expected to become a young person’s best friend. Others worry they’ll be taking on more responsibility than they feel equipped to handle.

In reality, most of those concerns disappear once we explain the role properly and talk about boundaries.

Volunteers need to have a clear understanding of the role they are undertaking. They are not a mate and they are not a professional. I describe it as being a friend who has an obligation to pass on concerns.

Good support is important too. There will always be times when volunteers have questions, need a bit of reassurance or simply want to talk something through. Having somebody there to listen and guide them makes a huge difference.

Just as importantly, volunteers need to feel valued. This is something I think Praxis Care does particularly well. Throughout the year, we take opportunities to recognise the contribution our volunteers make, because showing people they are valued is priceless.

Understanding the Need

You can have the best policies, training and processes in the world, but a successful befriending service starts with understanding why it is needed in the first place.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned is just how damaging loneliness and isolation can be for the young people we support.

Many are isolated because of their life experiences and their experience of the care system. Over time, that can chip away at confidence and self-esteem. Some young people aren’t confident enough to make friends or go out socially. Others worry that people know their story and will judge them because of it.

I have some great young people receiving the service and equally excellent volunteers who work wonders. Yet I still think many care-experienced young people face assumptions because of their background.

We like to think we have become more understanding as a society, and there has certainly been progress. However, I still see situations where assumptions are made as soon as the words “teenager” and “care system” are mentioned in the same sentence.

That is one of the reasons befriending can have such an impact on a young person’s life.

Volunteers offer something different. They are not social workers, foster carers or other professionals involved in a young person’s life. They are somebody who chooses to spend time with them, encourage them and help them experience new things.

Sometimes all it takes is one person turning up consistently, listening and helping a young person see something in themselves that they couldn’t see before.

The Right Match Can Change Everything

If there is one area where experience really matters, it is matching.

When you are thinking about the matching process, you have to weigh up what the young person needs and wants and what the volunteer brings.

The most successful befriending relationships have a level of humour on both sides. Yes, the volunteer is patient, listens and does all the things they are asked to do, but if humour comes into the mix, the experience is often much better for everyone involved because they are genuinely enjoying their time together.

Over the years I have seen many successful matches, but one recent partnership captures everything good befriending can achieve.

A young person joined the service who was lovely but very quiet and withdrawn, with very little self-confidence. She didn’t go out much, had very few peer friendships and often struggled to make decisions for herself.

The volunteer was new to the service and understandably a little anxious about how things would go. However, she had volunteered in a similar service abroad, engaged fully with the training and it was easy to see she wanted the match to work. Her humour and warm personality made her a great fit.

Over the past year, the young person’s confidence has grown significantly. Together they have visited museums, galleries, craft fairs and pottery classes, while professionals involved in her life have commented on how much more confident she has become. That growing confidence was reflected elsewhere too, including at school, where she worked hard and achieved excellent exam results.

For me, some of the biggest changes are often reflected in the smallest moments.

I have known young people go into a café, wait for the befriender to order and then say, “I’ll have the same”, because they don’t have the confidence to ask for what they really want.

This young person has gone from that point to suggesting activities herself and confidently saying no if she doesn’t want to do something.

That is actually massive for a young person.

Watching the relationship develop and seeing the impact it has had on the young person’s confidence has been incredibly rewarding. Their review meeting was one of the most uplifting and positive reviews I have held in my 24 years of running this service.

The Real Measure of Success

There are lots of ways to see the impact of befriending. Young people become more confident, make better choices, build relationships and become more independent.

But there is one measure of success I always come back to.

I always say to volunteers: you are working to be not needed.

The aim is not for a young person to rely on the service forever. The aim is to help them build the confidence and independence to move forward without it.

Occasionally a young person will say, “Thank you, it was great, but I don’t need the service anymore.”

That is a real success.

After all, the goal of befriending has never been to become a permanent part of a young person’s life. The goal is to help them reach a point where they feel confident enough to navigate life without that extra support.

When that happens, you know the relationship has achieved exactly what it set out to do.

What Young People Have Taught Me

If there is one lesson I have taken from more than two decades of building and leading this service, it has nothing to do with policies, recruitment or processes.

It is about the resilience of the young people I have had the privilege of supporting.

I have the utmost respect for our young people. They come to our service with a history, they have issues and problems and are often traumatised. Whist dealing with all this they are trying to have “normal” lives, they have, school, homework, girlfriends, boyfriends, hormones, friends, families, arguments and everything else that comes with being a teenager.  I look at them sometimes getting on with their lives in the middle of all this chaos and I like to think that the service gone some way in helping them.

When I reflect, I think that you can make a choice, you can decide if you want to carry your past around with you as a burden and let that burden stay with you for the rest of your life or you can choose to acknowledge it and move on. Speaking as someone who has a care and adoption history I have learnt that we can choose what we carry and we can choose what we let go of.