F – Flexible
Being flexible means using adaptability and creativity to help young people to complete HOPEFUL in the way that works best for them.
- Adaptability
Young people have told us that they like options to meet in-person, online, or over the phone and they might prefer different options on different days. You shouldn’t do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, but offering as much flexibility as you can will really help.
It’s also really helpful to support young people to go through HOPEFUL in a way that works for them – e.g., the number and length of meetings they have with you, the number of modules and activities they do, and how they do the activities – including whether they do them alone or with you.
We suggest activities for each module and their order, but you don’t have to stick to this if that isn’t what the young person wants to do. We also provide options (A and B) for most activities so that young people can choose the one they like best, e.g., writing versus drawing.
Having options so that if someone’s having a particularly bad day, then they can go on a virtual platform rather than having to leave the house.
Four activities for one session might be quite a lot, so it might be important to break those up, maybe to do some independently as well.
- Creativity
Being a HOPEFUL mentor means having the permission to be creative about how you support young people. The modules, and the activities within them, have been designed to provide the freedom to complete activities how young people want to do them. However, this isn’t the only way to be creative.
As a HOPEFUL mentor, you can use your knowledge and experiences to help young people to engage with the package. This might include using your knowledge of the young person to suggest ways that the activities could be done or different places in which to do them. It could include using any creative interests or skills that you have yourself, and seeing if the young person is interested in learning and then using these creative methods as part of HOPEFUL.