How Can Mentoring Transform a Young Person’s Confidence, Wellbeing, and Learning?

Summary

For some young people, it’s the first time they’ve had an adult who truly “gets” them. For others, it’s the gentle, steady support that helps them rebuild confidence after difficult experiences in school.

For children and young people with SEND, the right support shouldn’t just be about academic progress. Specialist SEN support is holistic and empathetic to each child’s individual needs, so that every student feels understood, safe, and able to learn without pressure. At SEND Tutoring, our tutors often become mentor‑figures over time. 

Some of our tutors have worked with the same young people for years, through school transitions, GCSEs, EHCP reviews, and all the ups and downs in between. Our 1-to-1 sessions are more than just “tuition”. They become a steady point in the week. A familiar face. Someone who knows your child’s pace, their humour, their anxieties, their sensory needs, and the tiny signs that tell you whether today is a “push gently” day or a “slow everything down” day.

That’s the heart of mentoring: a relationship built on trust, consistency, and genuine care.

But what does mentoring actually look like for a young person with SEND?

Why does it help?

And how do you know if it’s the right kind of support for your child?

These are questions we hear from parents all the time, especially those whose children have felt misunderstood in school, or who need a gentler, more relational approach before learning can happen.

In this blog, we explore what mentoring means in a SEND context, who it can benefit, and the kinds of changes families often notice. We also speak with MindJam, who have an exceptional online mentorship programme for SEND children and young people. In our Q&A, we take a deeper look at how mentoring can work in digital spaces where many young people feel safest.

What Is a Mentor?

A mentor is a steady, trusted adult who supports a young person’s emotional wellbeing, confidence, and sense of safety. Unlike a therapist or a classroom teacher, a mentor’s role is flexible and relational. They adapt to the child’s pace, communication style, and interests, creating a space where connection comes before expectation.

A mentor might:

• build trust through shared activities or interests
• help a young person regulate emotions
• support communication in whatever form feels most comfortable
• encourage independence and self‑advocacy
• celebrate strengths that may have been overlooked elsewhere

At SEND Tutoring, this often develops naturally. A tutor becomes someone your child trusts, someone who understands their sensory needs, their anxieties around learning, and the pace that works for them. Over time, that relationship can be just as transformative as the academic progress itself.

Who Is Mentoring For?

Mentoring can be especially helpful for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who:

• feel anxious or overwhelmed in school
• struggle with confidence or self‑esteem
• find traditional support settings too intense or formal
• communicate best through play, creativity, or digital spaces
• need a calm, patient adult who won’t rush or pressure them
• benefit from predictable, low‑demand interactions

Some children thrive with in‑person support. Others feel safer online, where the pressure of eye contact, body language, and instant responses is reduced. The key is finding the environment where your child can genuinely connect.

What Are the Benefits?

When a young person has a consistent, trusted adult in their corner, the impact often shows up in small but meaningful shifts across daily life:

Greater Willingness to Engage

Once they feel safe, they’re more open to trying, whether that’s schoolwork, social interaction, or simply showing up for support. This might look like:

• joining sessions more readily
• staying present for longer
• showing curiosity instead of shutting down

Engagement becomes something they choose, not something they’re pushed into. A mentor gives them a safe space to try new things, test the waters, and make mistakes.

Improved Problem‑Solving and Coping Skills

Mentoring gives young people the chance to practise navigating challenges with someone who won’t rush them. Over time, this can lead to:

• better tolerance for frustration
• more flexible thinking
• increased ability to pause before reacting

These are the foundations of emotional resilience.

A Stronger Sense of Identity and Self‑Worth

Many SEND children spend years feeling misunderstood or compared to neurotypical peers. A mentor who sees their strengths can help them:

• take pride in their interests
• recognise what they’re good at
• feel more comfortable being themselves

This shift in self‑perception often has a knock‑on effect across learning, friendships, and independence.

Taking a Deeper Dive: MindJam’s Online Mentorship Programme

To explore mentoring from another angle, particularly for young people who feel safest online, we spoke with MindJam, whose emotional‑support mentors work through gaming, creativity, and digital interests. Their approach aligns beautifully with our own values: low‑pressure, neurodivergent‑affirming, and built entirely around the young person.

Your mentors are described as independent emotional-support specialists with strong backgrounds in gaming and neurodiversity. How do you select and train mentors to ensure they embody MindJam’s values of empathy, patience, creativity and respect?

“We are very careful about who we bring in, because for us the relationship is everything. Someone can be brilliant at gaming or digital skills, but if they do not have patience, warmth and the right attitude towards young people, they may not be the right fit for MindJam. A lot of the young people we support have already had enough experiences of feeling judged, misunderstood or pushed before they are ready. So we look for mentors who are naturally calm, respectful and able to meet a young person where they are, rather than expecting them to fit into a certain mould. Training covers the practical essentials like safeguarding, online working and emotional wellbeing, but we also provide a rich professional community of knowledge, experience and support, as well access to regular external talks and training opportunities.We spend a lot of time thinking about how to work in a neurodivergent-affirming way, how to reduce pressure, how to communicate flexibly and how to use shared interests like gaming as a genuine bridge for trust. More than anything, we want mentors who really care, who can sit alongside a young person without judgement, and who are able to notice strengths that might have been missed elsewhere.”

What feedback do you hear from parents and schools about the difference mentoring makes day-to-day?

“Quite often it is the smaller day-to-day changes that families and schools notice first. A parent might say their child seems calmer after sessions, or that they are talking a bit more at home, or simply that they have something in the week they genuinely want to do. Schools might notice that a young person seems a bit more settled, a bit more able to express what they need, or a bit more open to support than they were before. Sometimes it is not one huge dramatic change. It is a gradual shift in confidence, trust or regulation. We also hear a lot that MindJam feels different because it does not feel like another demand being placed on the young person. For some children, just willingly engaging in support every week is a really big step. That can be the start of everything else. And for families, having one part of the week that feels positive rather than stressful can make a real difference to life at home too.”

How do you match each young person with the right mentor?

“We put a lot of thought into matching, because it really can make or break how easily the relationship starts. Obviously shared interests help, but it is not as simple as saying this young person likes Minecraft, so let us pair them with someone who likes Minecraft too. We also think about pace, personality, communication style and what kind of presence is likely to feel safest for that young person. Some need someone very calm and gently paced. Others connect better with someone a bit more playful, creative or structured. So it is partly about interests, but it is also about building the right connection. When you get the right fit, the relationship tends to build much more naturally and with a lot less pressure.”

How do mentors build trust with young people who may have had negative experiences with school or traditional support services?

“Very slowly, usually. We never assume trust is just going to be there because we mean well. A lot of young people come to us having had difficult experiences with adults or services, so it makes sense that they might be wary. Usually it starts with being consistent, being patient and not expecting too much too soon. Gaming helps because it gives you something shared to do, rather than putting the young person straight into a situation where they feel watched or expected to talk. A lot of trust-building is in the small moments really. Logging on. Sharing a game. Sitting quietly if that is what they need. It’s important that we’re communicating with young people on their level, not ours, and most importantly is coming back the next week and showing that you are still there and still the same. That is often where it starts. Not with some big breakthrough, but with the young person realising they are not going to be pushed or judged.”

How do mentors adapt their approach for young people who are non-speaking, selectively mute, or communication-avoidant?

“We keep communication as open as possible, because speaking is only one way of communicating and for some young people it is not the easiest one. We do not treat that as a problem that has to be fixed before support can happen. Some young people are much more comfortable using text chat, in-game actions, visuals, shared activities or creative work. Sometimes a session can be quite quiet and that is absolutely fine. We do not need everything to be verbal for it to be meaningful. A lot of it is about reducing pressure. The moment a young person feels they are being pushed to communicate in a certain way, that can shut things down very quickly. So we try to notice how they are already expressing themselves and build from there. Sometimes communication grows over time once trust is there. Sometimes the biggest shift is simply that the young person feels safer and more in control. Both matter.”

What inspired the creation of the MindJam mentor model, and how has it evolved over time?

“Really, it came from recognising that quite a lot of young people do not struggle because

they do not want support, but because the support on offer does not feel accessible to them.

That is especially true for a lot of neurodivergent young people. MindJam was built around the idea of meeting young people in a space that already feels familiar and meaningful to them. Gaming and digital interests are often where they feel most comfortable, most capable and most themselves. So instead of treating that as something separate from emotional support, we use it as the starting point. Over time the model has grown as we have listened more. We have broadened the kinds of activities we use, deepened the emotional support side, and kept learning how to make the work feel safer, more flexible and more relevant to each young person. MindJam is about creating trusting relationships in a low pressure approach, and building support around the young person rather than asking them to adapt to us.”

Do mentors integrate art, music, movement, storytelling, or other creative tools alongside gaming?

“Yes, definitely. Gaming is often the main way in, but it is not the only thing we use. Quite often other creative interests come out naturally once the relationship builds. That might be music production, digital art, storytelling, animation, design, coding, character creation, world-building, all sorts really. Sometimes a young person starts with gaming and then you discover that music or art is actually where they light up most. That is one of the things we really value in the model. We are not trying to keep support inside one narrow box. We are looking for what helps that young person express themselves, regulate, build confidence and enjoy the session.”

How does mentoring support children and young people who struggle with anxiety, overwhelm, or emotional dysregulation?

“One of the biggest things we do is take some of the pressure out of support. A lot of anxious young people are already carrying too much pressure in everyday life, so if support feels like one more demand, it is not going to help. We work at their pace and we adjust around what they can manage that day. Sometimes that means doing something engaging together. Sometimes it means slowing everything right down. Sometimes it means just giving them space to settle and feel safe. The relationship matters a lot too. Having one place in the week where you are understood, not judged, and not constantly being pushed can be really powerful. That in itself can help with regulation, confidence and trust. With time, we often see young people become more aware of what helps them, what overwhelms them and how to communicate that more clearly.”

Do you see shifts in confidence, communication, or self-advocacy over time?

“Yes, very often, although it can look different for different young people. Confidence is not always obvious from the outside. Sometimes it is just that a young person starts trying things, speaking up more, sharing ideas, or showing pride in something they have done. Communication can develop in all sorts of ways too, it’s not always about speaking more. Sometimes it is about being more comfortable typing, being more able to say when something feels too much, or being clearer about what they need. Self-advocacy is a big one. We often see young people becoming more able to say what helps, what does not, what feels manageable and what their boundaries are. That can be huge, especially for young people who have spent a lot of time feeling misunderstood.”

What’s one transformation story that stays with you (shared with consent and anonymity)?

“One story that has always stayed with me is a young person my colleague and I supported who was dealing with really significant school-based anxiety and exhaustion. At the time, he desperately wanted to go on to college and eventually work in engineering, but he was struggling to attend school and it was looking increasingly unlikely that he would get the maths and English GCSEs he needed. We started mentoring him in a very low-pressure, supportive way. Because I had previously worked as a teaching assistant and knew the English syllabus, I was able to help him with some of his English work. But that took a lot from him emotionally, so we had to work very much at his pace. Some days we could engage with the work, and some days we needed to step back, have a quieter session and just let him regulate his anxiety. Because music is part of my own background, I asked whether he would like to explore some music production with me, and he really took to it. It became something he genuinely looked forward to, but more than that it gave him a creative outlet that was calming, cathartic and really effective for self-regulation. With a huge amount of hard work and determination on his part, he did go on to achieve his GCSEs.

But through the mentoring process he realised that what he actually wanted to pursue next was music and audio production. My colleague and I continued to mentor him through college, where he achieved a distinction and received an unconditional offer from the university of his choice. After that, he decided he needed some time to decompress and think about what he wanted next. University still felt daunting, especially with the anxiety around the level of debt involved. During that time he travelled, came back and shared his experiences with his mentors, and we kept exploring future options together.

Eventually, although he was still understandably nervous about putting himself out there, he found a path that brought together his interests in engineering, and audio design. He now works for an audio engineering company that has also paid for his degree. What stays with me is that we did not push him into a path. We gave him space, support and consistency, and he found his own path. The achievement was absolutely his, but I do think having a low-pressure and genuinely supportive environment gave him the confidence to say yes to possibilities he might otherwise have felt were out of reach.”

Why do you think so many neurodivergent young people feel safer connecting through digital spaces?

“I think digital spaces often remove some of the social pressure that can make face-to-face interaction feel exhausting or overwhelming. There is usually more control, more predictability and more choice in how you engage. For a lot of neurodivergent young people, that matters a great deal. There is often less pressure around eye contact, body language, instant responses and all the other unspoken bits of communication that can feel really intense. So it is not that digital spaces magically solve everything, but they can create a much safer starting point. And when someone feels safer, they are much more likely to connect.”

What misconceptions do you often encounter about gaming-based support?

“Probably the biggest one is the idea that gaming is a hobby, and should not be used as an effective vehicle for emotional support. In our experience, for many young people it is actually what makes mentoring and emotional support possible. Gaming gives you a shared focus. It lowers pressure. It creates opportunities for trust, communication, creativity and confidence to grow. For a lot of young people, it is much easier to connect through something familiar and enjoyable than through a very formal support setting. Another misconception is that screen-based support is less meaningful than face-to-face support. Honestly, we have seen first hand that it can be incredibly relational and very powerful. The game is not there as a distraction. It is there as the bridge.”

Seeing the Impact for Yourself

SEND support doesn’t have to be one‑size‑fits‑all. What matters is that it is:

• flexible
• relationship‑centred
• neurodivergent‑affirming
• built around the young person’s needs and interests

When those elements are in place, mentoring has a way of opening doors that once felt firmly shut. For some young people, it’s the first time they’ve had an adult who truly “gets” them. For others, it’s the gentle, steady support that helps them rebuild confidence after difficult experiences in school. And for many families, it’s simply the relief of seeing their child look forward to something again.

Every child’s journey is different. 

Whether that happens through in‑person tutoring, online emotional support, or a blend of both, mentoring can be a powerful anchor. As our Q&A with MindJam shows us so clearly, the right relationship can make all the difference.

Support for Every Learner
Discover how SEND Tutoring supports students with a wide range of needs, including autism, dyslexia, PDA, SEMH, epilepsy, and more. 

Resources and Insights 

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Ella Jones

If you’re looking for support for a child or young person with special educational needs or a disability, book a free call with us today and find out how we can help.