Goal 17 At The Surrey House Project
Oct 20, 2025
Last month, our team member Beth had the opportunity to present our mentoring programme to a group of young people from the Surrey area. As part of our partnership with the local council, we’ve connected with an existing initiative that supports care leavers — The House Project.
The House Project is a new initiative designed to provide comprehensive support and help young people develop the practical skills they need when leaving home. The programme covers key areas such as budgeting, cooking, and financial management. Participants meet weekly with project coordinators, building a sense of community and mutual support as they prepare for independent living.
The team leading the initiative approached us to explore whether their young people could also access our mentoring programme — offering them an additional layer of development and support alongside their weekly sessions. Naturally, we were delighted to say yes. Working closely with our colleagues at the local authority, we arranged to visit their second group session to introduce the opportunity.
The Positive Impact Of Mentoring
The evening began with introductions from Beth and our local authority partner, followed by an icebreaker activity featuring a range of celebrities who all shared one thing in common — they had all been mentored. This led nicely into Beth's presentation on what mentoring is, how our onboarding process works, and the positive impact a mentor can have. She also shared examples of some of our current partnerships and explained how the young people could get involved.
During the break, our LA partner and Beth stayed in the room to chat informally with participants, and we invited anyone interested to sign up to the programme that evening. The response was fantastic — out of the ten young people present, five signed up on the spot!
Since then, three of those five have already completed their welcome chats and are ready to be matched with mentors. We've been in touch with our mentor network to begin pairing them up.
The Power Of Collaboration
What made this evening so powerful was the collaboration between services — all working together with the same goal of supporting these young people. We’re incredibly optimistic about the new partnerships that will form through this connection.
We’ve also let the remaining participants know that they’re welcome to join the programme at any point if they decide to take part later on. Meeting the group in their own environment, where they felt relaxed and supported, was key to their enthusiastic engagement and quick onboarding.
This experience has been a valuable learning moment for us at Goal 17 — a clear example of the impact that collaboration and joined-up working can have. We're all really looking forward to seeing these new mentoring relationships develop and supporting these young people over the coming months.