Welcome to the HSBCkids website. Here you will find out about the mentoring and tutoring programs operating in NSW, ACT, Victoria and Queensland, which are supported by HSBC Bank Australia. HSBCkids is based on the highly successful Kids Friends program run by Barnardos for the last 25 years and the Tutoring Program which has been operating for 6 years.
Barnardos Australia, the Childrens Charity and HSBC Bank Australia have joined forces to establish this website and the HSBCkids program. This web-site provides guidance to agencies operating a HSBCkids program.
HSBCkids is an innovative venture that establishes a partnership between the HSBC Bank Australia and Barnardos Australia, a community volunteer and a child or young person. It builds on the resilience of children and young people, helps them through tough times and helps to develop options for growth.
HSBCkids combines the experience of Barnardos Kids Friends mentoring and tutoring programs and is designed to be used by disadvantaged children throughout Australia. These programs meet the identified needs of children aged between 6 and 12 years of age.
This program matches disadvantaged children with carefully selected and checked adult volunteers who can offer mentoring, support and guidance.
For children who are in need of friendship and support from a special person outside the family, this program offers them the chance to develop new skills and explore new opportunities.
Volunteers spend regular time, between 1 and 5 hours a week with a child or young person, acting as a role model to assist with learning and development and helping the child or young person to set and achieve their personal goals.
Each friendship is unique but is supported and monitored by trained staff.
Programs are currently established in:
Auburn, Canberra, Inner Sydney, Illawarra area, Penrith, Inner West Sydney,
Eastern Sydney, Hampton Park (Melbourne) and Pine Rivers Area (Brisbane)
And becoming established in:
Mudgee (New South Wales)
If you live within easy distance of any of the above regions and wish to volunteer, please complete the application by clicking on the link below.
Volunteer
Tutor (Application to become a tutor)
Volunteer Friend
(Application to become a friend)
Since January 1980, the Kid’s Friends program has been offering a service to children and teenagers who for various reasons lack a special adult companion to share problems, interests and some good times with. Since Kid’s Friends started, over 300 ‘Kids’ have been linked with ‘Friends’, some of these friendships have lasted for four or five years, whilst others have lasted a shorter time.
In 1998, a specialist volunteer tutoring program commenced after it became apparent that many children in the Kids Friends program required extra educational support. The volunteer Tutoring program was established to assist children from disadvantaged families with their literacy and numeracy skills and their homework. In 1999, Shopen and Liddicoat undertook an evaluation of the Tutoring program . Shopen and Liddicoat concluded the following:
"The project proved to be highly effective and successfully met its objectives. Its impact on the children’s participation and achievement at school was significant. Measurable improvements occurred in the following areas:
- Increased engagement with schooling Comments from teachers, tutors and parents referred to demonstrations of a re-engagement with school, for example, students completed homework, attended more regularly and with more enthusiasm and attempted school tasks more confidently.
- Improved achievement. There was evidence in students’ learning skills for the majority of the students. General language skills, reading, spelling, organisation, memory of tables were all mentioned as having improved for individual children. The students themselves believed that having a tutor helped them better understand what they have to do in order to learn and improve their skills.
- Improved confidence and self-esteem. Improved confidence and self-esteem were mentioned frequently in the data. However, such confidence was fragile and could fluctuate in response to other things happening in the children’s lives. Greater success at school and greater support at home were important factors in developing improved confidence and self-esteem.
- Attendance. Improved attendance at school appears to be a consequence of improved confidence and improved performance."
HSBCkids is a well co-ordinated program that provides volunteer mentors for children and young people by:
1. Recruiting reference checked volunteers who are trained to be mentors;
2. Provides training courses for the mentors;
3. Co-ordinates activities for the mentors;
4. Supports the mentors.
HSBCkids can provide either:
1. Mentoring program with an adult volunteer, who is called a ‘Friend’,
and/or
2. Provision of educational mentoring and tutoring by an adult volunteer,
who is called a ‘Tutor.
Either or both a Friend or Tutor can be provided, depending on the child’s needs.
Mentoring – what does it mean?
The Oxford Dictionary describes a mentor as being an ‘experienced and trusted adviser’. By way of a definition, a mentor may be any of the following: a teacher, instructor, perceptor, master, educator, role model, supporter or counsellor. Mentoring clearly involves a relationship, which has a positive impact on those involved. Mentoring of a child or young person is aimed at providing a caring relationship to develop, encourage and extend the child or young person. Gilligan, 1999 refers to mentoring for a child or young person as the ‘encouragement and support of the child’s talents, interests and leisure activities by a committed adult’.
Through role modelling, the mentor is the supplier of values and attitudes, not necessarily by directly teaching values and attitudes, but as the child watches and interacts with the mentor.
A mentor-child relationship can be a powerful tool for development and extension of the child/young person and in some contexts a dramatic agent for social change for each of those involved.
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