STAFF at a Derbyshire company have not let lockdown stop them from providing a listening ear and words of advice to students who need support at Murray Park Community School.
For several years, volunteers from Lubrizol, based in Hazelwood, have been working with Derby City Council’s Enterprise for Education partnership, which links employers with schools.
During lockdown the face-to-face mentoring programme was put on hold, but employees at Lubrizol continued to support the Mickleover school virtually, talking to students in their own homes via an online platform.
The scheme is designed to help raise pupils’ self-belief, motivation and aspirations, inform them about the wide range of career opportunities available to them and help them to achieve their best by unlocking their true potential.
Among the volunteers is Lubrizol’s corporate social responsibility lead, Claire Hollingshurst, who has given up her time to talk to students who have been identified by their teachers as in need of guidance and support.
Lubrizol’s Claire Hollingshurst has been supporting pupils at Murray Park Community School.
She said: “Although moving the mentoring programme online was fairly simple, the safeguarding surrounding this has been stringently monitored and a member of the school’s teaching staff remains online to ensure everyone’s safety.
“But moving our support online has meant that I have been able to spend longer with my young person, as my time isn’t taken up travelling to and from the school.
“It’s very rewarding work and I have had some lovely feedback from one pupil’s parents saying that they had seen her ‘buzzing with pride’ after each session.
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“Data protection means that I don’t find out how things work out for the students that I work with, but I hope that by listening to them and offering a different perspective I am able to help them and steer them in the right direction.”
Under the scheme, every child receives six one-hour sessions, which are normally every 2-3 weeks during term time. However, lockdown has enabled sessions to become weekly and they will continue into the summer holiday.
Six employees at Lubrizol have received training from Enterprise for Education in a range of techniques designed to support teenagers as well as advice around safeguarding and topics to discuss to help engage the youngsters.
As well as mentoring, staff also work with Murray Park and several other schools in the city to provide mock interviews and CV writing workshops.
The project is part of Lubrizol’s international goal for 2,020 at-home and virtual volunteer hours this year, which it initiated at the height of COVID-19. The company is encouraging all employees to donate time to identified causes or their favourite organisations from home as the world battles coronavirus.
Murray Park headteacher Nicola Caley said: “We are very grateful to Lubrizol for the support they provide to school. Sometimes it is far easier for a student to open up to someone who isn’t a parent or teacher and we have seen some children who are being mentored really flourishing thanks to the outside support.
“Of course, lockdown has been a challenging time for both schools and industry but our pupils’ needs have not gone away during this time and so we were keen to be able to continue this programme.
“Thanks to technology and the efforts of Lubrizol I am delighted we have been able to continue.”
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