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Levenshulme, Manchester · after-school & early evening sessions Taking on new clients
True North Mentoring
The small print

Urgent help & safeguarding

This page says plainly what mentoring can and cannot do when something is wrong, and where to turn when it can't wait.

Mentoring is not an emergency service

I read messages and emails during working hours and reply within two working days. Between sessions, and especially at night or over weekends, I cannot respond quickly enough to be relied on in a crisis. That is a limitation of the setting, not a measure of how much a young person's safety matters.

If tonight is not okay

These are for teenagers first, and for parents right after them. They are free, open now, and used to hearing exactly what you're carrying. Nothing you say will be too much or too strange.

  • Childline: call 0800 1111, free and confidential for anyone under 19, any hour of any day
  • Shout: text 85258 for free, confidential 24/7 text support
  • Papyrus HOPELINE247: call 0800 068 4141 if you're a young person having thoughts of suicide, or an adult worried about one
  • NHS 111, option 2: urgent mental health support, including Greater Manchester's crisis teams
  • 999 or A&E: if anyone is in immediate danger

For parents wrestling with the "is this serious?" question, the YoungMinds Parents Helpline on 0808 802 5544 (weekdays, 9:30am to 4pm) exists precisely for that conversation.

How worries are handled in the work

If something worrying comes up in a session, I don't sit on it. Safeguarding trained means exactly this: I follow a written safeguarding policy, I act on concerns every time, and I involve the right people, which can mean parents, the GP, school safeguarding leads or children's services, depending on what the situation needs. Wherever possible the young person is involved in that process rather than having it happen around them.

Confidentiality and safety

What a young person tells me stays between us, with one exception that both they and their parents hear from me in plain words before we start: where there is a risk to their safety or someone else's, I will always act, and I will always share what's needed with the people who need to know.