Report for Cerebral Palsy Alliance: Evaluation of the Ignition Mentoring Program

Cerebral Palsy Alliance has been running the Ignition Mentoring program since 2006 to support teenagers with cerebral palsy. The aim is to improve the self-esteem and social engagement skills of 14-16 year-olds to better prepare them for living in an adult world. A collaboration with business enterprises that supports community volunteering, ING and ANZ, provides mentors and other forms of support. This report presents some background on the Ignition Mentoring program and an evaluation of outcomes as determined from 113 survey forms filled in by mentees, their carers (parents) and mentors at various stages of the program. The findings from mentor, mentee and carer survey data is presented in separate sections of the report. Our analysis of the survey data was supplemented by unstructured interviews with program sponsors and managers. For comparison and benchmarking, we reviewed relevant previous research on youth mentoring and mentoring young people with disability.