The Kids Network are proud to announce that our volunteer training has now been awarded a Badge of Excellence from OpenAwards. This means our training is accredited and each of our volunteers who complete their essential learning and development will be awarded with a certificate in Child-Led Mentoring. The Kids Network is the only organisation in the country offering specialised and accredited child-led mentoring training. 

All our volunteers undergo lots of free and fun training to be able to deliver the best experience to our Little Londoners. This includes how to create a child-led mentoring experience, safeguarding, trauma-informed practice and anti-oppression. The sessions are delivered as part of the mentor induction and upskilling training sessions throughout their year of mentoring. 

Maria McEvoy, our Head of Volunteering said “We’re all so grateful to our volunteers for the huge commitment they make to their own learning and development and of course the time they give each week to our children across the city. This is a real opportunity to celebrate and highlight their achievements.” 

The Badge of Excellence is Open Awards’ quality assurance mark that recognises excellent training, development and learning provision and meaningful outcomes.  

There are excellent pieces of work being completed across the charity sector that are achieving impressive outcomes for young people and adults that are not easily aligned to a level 3 or higher qualification but still deserve to be nationally recognised as an achievement and outcome for the learner. 

In line with Open Awards’ mission to change lives through learning, the Badge of Excellence quality mark assures the training and learning activities rather than accrediting the learners themselves. 

All mentors who have undergone our brand-new training, which launched in May 2023, will be eligible for the certificate having completed the following modules. 

• The Kids Network 2-day Induction 
• Child-led mentoring 
• Child-led endings 
• Safeguarding  
• Anti-oppression 
• Trauma-informed Practice 

These sessions are delivered in a mixture of face-to-face workshops and online webinars to ensure that the programme is accessible to all our volunteers no matter their learning style and busy schedules. 

Tigan Palmer, our Head of Development who led on the creation of the training programme said “It’s a huge honour to be recognised as the only provider of specialised child-led mentoring training in the country. This has been such a team effort: our Advisory Panel of children last year shaped what we included, and our wonderful mentors and team gave loads of time and feedback to reach the final product. From this, we will be creating a framework to ensure quality across our boroughs and involving mentors throughout this process is one of my favourite aspects of it. My hope is that we can empower our mentors to become champions for children at TKN and beyond, so that London can learn from its children to create a city and society that serves them.’ 

If you have any questions please contact Maria, our Head of Volunteering at m.mcevoy@thekidsnetwork.org.uk  

To become a mentor, gain this qualification and have a positive impact on the life of a Little Londoner visit our Become a Mentor page.