Call for new ways of working by MBF CEO in conference speech
6 October 2011
Read the informative keynote speech by MBF chief executive Steve Matthews at our national conference held on 29 September in London, as he explored the future opportunities and challenges for mentoring and befriending.
Steve outlined the issues facing mentoring and befriending providers – the cuts in funding and public spending, the Big Society focus on encouraging social action and volunteering and the debate emerging from the recent riots. He encouraged delegates to put across their views – why not post on our discussion forum.
The opportunities Steve highlighted included:
- Increased opportunities to bid for state money to provide services – MBF”s pilot project with Remploy aims to test an approach which uses different models of mentoring to support over 300 disabled, disadvantaged adults into sustainable employment.
- The continued place for grant funding and the work that MBF has been doing to encourage funders to recognise the value of the Approved Provider Standard when putting out tenders or making funding decisions.
- The interest in early intervention and prevention strategies and how mentoring and befriending can be a part of this agenda.
The three main challenges posed to the sector were:
- Get better at demonstrating outcomes.
- Make the best use of resources and explore opportunities to collaborate and work together to make those resources go further.
- Respond to the new ways in which people want to engage in volunteering e.g., through new technology.
Steve concluded by calling for the mentoring and befriending community to adapt to this radically changing environment by getting smarter and looking at ways of delivering mentoring and befriending through new ways of collaborating.
Download the full text of Steve Matthews’ keynote speech (PDF)
A full conference report will be released later this month with summaries of all the speeches and workshops.
If you were a conference delegate and didn’t manage to fill in an evaluation form on the day, you can do so on our online evaluation form - your views are welcomed and will help shape our future planning of events.
