Empowering individuals and families through one-on-one community mentoring
COACH is a community mentoring program helping people achieve their goals. COACH pairs participants with trained volunteer mentors from the community to help develop and stick to plans to achieve better outcomes at work, at home, or at school.
A COACH mentor is a friend with purpose, offering practical help and mentoring towards life goals. These goals include education, employment, training, improved mental health, reduction in addictive habits, financial management, housing, family cohesion, decrease in social isolation, and improved physical and emotional wellbeing. Mentoring is a way to bring out the best in people and help them make use of their own resources. It also promotes individual responsibility and builds community cohesion.
COACH stands for Creating Opportunities And Casting Hope.
COACH might be for you if…
You have goals, but don’t know how to achieve them.
You have trouble sticking to things.
You feel stuck in life, and don’t know how to move forward.
You feel isolated and need more community connection.
COACH is supported by the Australian Government
2024 Volunteer Grant recipient.
COACH in action!
Dale (mentor) and Theo (mentee) have cultivated a friendship that gives Theo confidence and support to explore life and discover more about himself. See COACH in action in this three minute documentary.
About COACH
The COACH program helps to mobilise the community to break generational cycles of poverty by supporting families and young people in tough places to flourish by mentoring them. COACH partners with not-for-profits, churches, and the community to train volunteer mentors and match them with individuals in need. Over 12 to 18 months, COACH participants meet with their mentors each week to set goals, build confidence, and be supported and encouraged.
Bayview Care is the registered COACH Community Mentoring provider on the Southern Mornington Peninsula.
Bayview Care offers COACH mentoring in three streams
Families:
A family mentor is friend with purpose who offers practical help and mentoring towards the family’s life goals. The aim is to strengthen the whole family through a one-to-one mentoring relationship between a volunteer and a parent. The fourteen-hour initial training for family mentors covers an introduction to mentoring as well as boundaries, risks, and understanding healthy families.
Youth:
A youth mentor is a friend with purpose who offers activities and mentoring towards a young person’s life goals. Youth mentors operate within secondary schools or within the community. The aim is to help the young person learn and benefit from a positive older role model. The fourteen-hour initial training for youth mentors covers an introduction to mentoring as well as boundaries, risks, and understanding young people.
Kids:
A kids mentor provides one to one mentoring and relationship building for a primary school student or group of students in a school, during school hours, for the purpose of strengthening the student emotionally, educationally, and socially. The aim is to widen the circle of influence, speaking hope and offering practical help and a positive role model.
Become a Mentor
If you’re interested in supporting local people and families through mentoring, and are willing to undergo training and screening to work with vulnerable people, head to our volunteering page to see what positions are available.
Team
Sally Pittard
Coach Coordinator
Kerryn Dux
Coach Coordinator