Filling the sage gap

Beth Johnson Foundation

Filling the sage gap

Beth Johnson Foundation

Doug Tipper used to be a miner and then he worked in the potteries. Now he is retired and in his second year as volunteer mentor with children at a school in Stoke-on-Trent. His work with the Beth Johnson Foundation, he says, helps build bridges between the younger and older generations.

"Children are very respectful and very interested in what the older generations get up to," says Tipper. "I am getting a lot out of it too - it has enabled me to become computer-literate and the teachers are very supportive of our work.

"I find the children have got the same aspirations as we had as youngsters. The biggest compliment I have had was when one young lad told me I was 'wicked' and 'cool'. I felt as if I was on the same wavelength."

The foundation, which started in Stoke in 1972, works within four main project areas: health promotion for older people; developing sustainable initiatives with the African-Caribbean community; advocacy for people with dementia; and inter-generational activities such as those involving mentors and schoolchildren. It also works on developing support services for older people in the local Polish community.

Overall, there are some 150 volunteers working directly for the foundation on a range of projects involving people aged over 50. Their inter-generational approach in schools is based on the belief that if young and old generations are brought together in positive ways, then barriers and misunderstandings between them disappear and relationships of trust and mutual respect develop.

When the mentoring project was set up five years ago, it involved one primary school and two secondary schools in Stoke. Currently, half a dozen schools are involved and next year it will be expanded to 10. Each school identifies children who may be at risk of failing and they are assigned to mentors for a year.

Doug Tipper says it is important to listen to the children, to be non-judgmental and not to criticise them or do their work for them. "A lot of the time when they are stuck, they don't want to ask the teacher for help. But they can ask us."

The young people involved are equally complimentary about their mentors. One student says: "My mentor is a gentle, quiet man with a low voice. He helps me with reading and writing and especially maths, which I hated. But now it's OK and I feel better about the work." Another says: "My mentor is my friend and I think that she is everyone's friend."

Anita Oxford is about to start her fourth year as a mentor. "Mentoring is all about making them think and resolve problems," she says. "My young mentee got all his sums wrong and I asked what he was going to do about it - he said he didn't know. If I had not been there, he probably wouldn't have pushed himself to work it out. But then he worked it out and he thanked me for it. That is what mentoring is all about - helping them resolve problems."

Lynn Purcell, mentoring project co-ordinator, says 18 of the 20 mentors who worked in schools last year have signed up for another year's work. "This success is a reflection of how much those people enjoyed mentoring."

The foundation - named after the wife of the local benefactor who set it up - plans to use the Guardian award as a springboard to get more funding for its projects. It also hopes to develop a project with the local youth justice team to look at intergenerational approaches to youth offending.

Alan Hatton-Yeo, the foundation's chief executive, says the charity's aim is to continue to challenge the stereotypical way that older people are seen within society. It seeks to achieve an inclusive approach, with equality of access and support for all citizens. "Older people are not a homogeneous group," adds Hatton-Yeo. "There are the young old, the old old and the frailer old - it is such a diverse community. Often, people over 50 do not see themselves as old."

 The Beth Johnson Foundation, Parkfield House, 64 Princess Road, Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 7JL (01782-844036)