Whitelion Mentoring Program
Project Case Study
Project Summary
Whitelion offers a number of mentoring programs which support vulnerable young people at various
levels of involvement with the youth justice or out-of-home care systems. There are five key programs
and each provides connections to positive adult role models through individual and group activities.
Whitelion's funding partners each support one or more of the following programs within the overall
Mentoring Program, but have not formed a formal collaboration at this stage:
 The Custodial Youth Justice Mentoring Program supports young people housed in either
Parkville Youth Residential Centre or Melbourne Youth Justice Centre;
 The Northern Youth Justice Mentoring Program supports young people aged 14-21 years from
Melbourne’s northern metropolitan region who are at risk of offending, on community based
youth justice orders or transitioning back into the community from the youth justice system;
 The Whitelion Leaving Care Mentoring Program works with young people who are in Out-ofHome Care and aims to match the young person with a mentor from the community before
they become independent;
 The RAMP Mentoring Program is run jointly with the Reach Foundation and aims to engage
young people aged between 13-17 years living in residential care in Melbourne’s eastern
suburbs to give them experiences that will inspire them to take a positive and proactive
approach to their lives.
 The Ansaar Multicultural Mentoring Programs trains mentors who are able to support,
encourage and re-connect youth of various multicultural backgrounds, with their
 communities.
1.
IDENTIFYING INFORMATION
1.1
Lead agency
Whitelion
1.2
Key drivers
The staff member at Whitelion has been the key person responsible for the overall Mentoring
Program. Portland House Foundation has played a major role in supporting the mentoring
program that works specifically with young people currently in custody at one of the juvenile
justice facilities.
1.3
Project Partners
Philanthropic
Trust
Portland House
Foundation
The R. E. Ross Trust
Medibank Community
Fund
Freemasons Public
Charitable
Foundation
Victorian
Government
Department of
Human Services
Community
Organisation
Whitelion
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1.4
Date commenced
The program has been operating since 2000. Partners have joined at various stages throughout
its development.
Portland House commenced its funding support for the program in 2004.
1.5
Objectives of the project
The purpose of the Whitelion Mentoring Program is to support vulnerable young people, either in
custody or in the community, to connect with a positive volunteer mentor form the community.
There are a number of distinct services provided as part of the broader Mentoring Program to
cater for the needs of young people in various situations, but different components of the Program
all have a preventative focus. It is prevention in the sense of assisting the young person not to reoffend, rather than intervening at the earliest possible stage in a vulnerable young person’s life.
While all the mentoring programs do have this preventative focus, they do intervene at different
stages – some work with young people in custody or out of home care, others with at risk young
people in the community.
2.
BACKGROUND AND IMPETUS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
PROJECT PARTNERSHIPS
2.1
History and background of the lead organisation
Whitelion was established in 1999 to support and assist highly vulnerable young people to
change their lives. It now operates in four states, including Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales
and South Australia.
Whitelion provides opportunities, relationships and a community for young people involved in the
Youth Justice System or at risk of involvement. This is achieved through role modelling,
mentoring, employment and Indigenous programs, outreach services, and through prevention
programs run in rural and metropolitan communities.
The organisation has a focus on leadership, growth, organisational efficiency and sustainability,
coupled with strategic alliances and strong relationships with its stakeholders. The inclusion and
engagement of various sectors of the community in its work has and continues to be an
innovative approach in the statutory setting, making it one of the leaders in the specialist youth
services sector in which it operates.
Over the 12 years of its existence, Whitelion’s support group has grown significantly and is made
up of people from business, the media, sporting organisations, the entertainment industry and the
general public.
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2.2
Nature of participation of other partners
The partnership functions through different funding stakeholders providing support to
specific elements of the broader Mentoring Program.
The Department of Human Services provides support for the mentoring of young people
who are preparing to transition from out of home care to independent living, while the
Portland House Foundation and Medibank Community Fund provide support for mentoring
young people currently living in custody at one of Melbourne’s youth justice facilities. The
collaboration is not formally structured, however the flexibility provided by the different
funding streams enables Whitelion to be “agile” in its service delivery and meet the needs
of the young people.
As this is not a structured collaboration that involved parties coming together at the outset
for a mutually agreed purpose, there has never been a clear and shared understanding of
what can be achieved, or probably even an agreement that the arrangement is a
collaboration. Currently, Whitelion facilitates the collaborative nature of the relationships
between the various stakeholders, predominantly through funding partnerships and
working with each funder on an individual basis.
2.3
Process for the development and work of the project
A reading of the international material suggests that collaborations form a continuum of
engagement between the lead agency and the funding partners, from networking,
coordinating and cooperating through to collaboration. On this basis, the Whitelion
Mentoring Program falls into a co-operating category. This involves exchanging
information and sharing resources. It requires a significant amount of time, a level of trust
between partners, and an ability for agencies to share turf. It often involves independent
co-funding.
Whitelion regularly meets with each funding partner on an individual basis and keeps
them involved. It is believed that this is the best approach, unless there is demonstrated
added value to program outcomes by coming together more frequently to share
information and learnings.
A highly structured collaboration does not appear to be warranted in this instance,
particularly if it generates a greater burden of additional paperwork, time demands and
increased accountabilities, and does not contribute to improved outcomes.
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Whitelion does however believe it has a genuine collaboration with Portland House
Foundation, which became a funding partner because it saw the opportunity to add value
to an existing government funded program run by Whitelion. The approach of Portland
House Foundation is to invest in the ‘vision and acumen’ of people and non-profit
organisations, and to follow their lead in setting priorities and managing the delivery of
benefits from dollars granted. Structured collaboration is an important element of the
funding relationship, but the level of involvement of the Foundation can be quite minimal if
involvement does not add anything to the activities being undertaken, or help secure the
best use of funds available.
Portland House sees its relationship to government funding as one in which the
philanthropic dollars can be the catalyst or initial funding for pilot programs, sometimes
offering new or expanded approaches. It can also provide complementary funding for
parts of a project or program funded by government, strengthening or emphasising
particular elements that are considered important. The Foundation will happily participate
in a more active collaboration with other stakeholders, if requested, and believe the
strength of any collaboration depends on how well the partners understand their skills sets
and what each partner brings to the table. While Portland House Foundation has
acquired significant knowledge of the policy and operational aspects of the mentoring
program by being a partner, they do not seek active involvement or influence at this level,
and rely on Whitelion to lead and contribute on policy and operations. The Foundation
has an interest in content, and expects to learn and be informed, but does not see itself as
the expert. "In thinking about a more structured collaboration, the Foundation would want
to be confident that a more formalised structure would not detract from Whitelion’s current
‘lightness on feet’, ability to be flexible and to adapt quickly to new policy, program or
funding developments".
Genevieve Timmons, Portland House Foundation
Following participation in The Philanthropy – Government case study and group
discussions, Whitelion can see the potential benefits of establishing a more explicit and
formalised approach to collaboration, perhaps starting with a reference group which could
add value by bringing together people with expertise in this work. In this way, it will
become clear whether some of the barriers/obstacles facing the various Mentoring
Programs could perhaps be better resolved and it could contribute to shaping strategies
and sharing knowledge to improve the program.
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2.4
Major milestones and relevant timelines
Each mentoring program has individual funding agreements, targets and milestones.
These milestones and targets vary depending on the scale of the program and the nature
of the mentoring provided. All Whitelion mentoring services are considered as ongoing
elements of the organization’s service delivery.
2.5
Governance arrangements
This partnership is governed by a number of arrangements, as a result of having multiple
funding stakeholders involved. The Mentoring program must therefore address the
governance requirements of each individual stakeholder as outlined in both philanthropic
and government funding agreements. This lack of structure across the collaboration results
in differing processes and arrangements across each program.
2.6
Current status of the project
The Mentoring Program is seen as an ongoing program for Whitelion with no anticipated
finish date. Whitelion is keen to see the program continuing as long as funding continues
and as long as the various components of the Program remain effective. It does however
believe there should be clarity with each partner about how they see their future
commitment.
Whitelion indicated that they are not looking for an exit strategy, but rather for a
“continuation” strategy.
2.7
Success factors
Regular meetings with funding partners and keeping them involved has been one of the
factors of the Program’s success.
The trust, respect and good will established with each of the funding partners is also a
success factor, as the relationship with each one has added value to the individual
mentoring programs.
In addition, Whitelion has gained additional learnings from the roundtable sessions held
by Portland House which brings together its grant recipients to discuss strategic
directions of the work they are undertaking. These opportunities promote collaboration
between grantees who are building quite sophisticated funding collaborations themselves.
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2.8
Major Challenges
One of the major issues to be considered in thinking about moving toward a more
formalised collaboration among key stakeholders would be to clarify lead organisation and
governance arrangements, so that it doesn’t become too burdensome for the partners and
it is accepted that Whitelion drives the collaboration.
It would also be important to establish clear lines of communication and clarify what each
partner wants to get out of the relationship, in order to meet the needs of stakeholders and
clients.
2.9
Evaluation
Whitelion had developed evaluation strategies as part of the Mentoring Program and
builds costings for this into funding agreements. As assessing the impact of these
programs on young people can be difficult, the current framework is being reworked to
ensure greater rigour.
3.
ASSESSMENT OF THE PROJECT AGAINST EACH DRAFT
GUIDING PRINCIPLE
Given that this is a fairly unstructured collaboration, with individual partnership
agreements with the each of the funding bodies, many of the principles were not relevant
to the current arrangement. Funding partners became involved at different stages of the
Program’s development, and do not meet together as a group.
3.1
Understand each other’s roles, policies, priorities and limitations
As the funding partners do not meet together with Whitelion around the overall
development of the Mentoring Program, it is fair to assume that there are varying levels of
understanding around this. From Whitelion’s perspective, they are clearer about
government policies and priorities than those of their philanthropic partners. However, this
is changing as philanthropic funding becomes more targeted and openly articulated.
As the funding bodies do not meet together, it is unlikely that there is a good
understanding amongst the government and philanthropic funders of each other’s roles,
policies and priorities.
As with the other case studies, the limitations of each partner is not well understood – this
is often not clear until a situation arises which requires greater clarity in this regard.
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3.2
Engage each other early when the potential idea/interest/need for a collaborative
approach is being considered
The project was initiated by Whitelion, with various partners becoming involved in different
aspects of the program over the nine years of its operation.
3.3
Clarify expectations
Because the partners were not all involved from the outset, there is not a shared
understanding at this stage of what can be achieved or what the added value might be
through a more formalised collaboration.
3.4
Ensure sufficient time to develop trust and agreed approaches
This has been developed between Whitelion and each of its funding partners, through
high levels of communication and feedback on the social return of their investments in the
Program. Many of these partnerships have developed as trusting relationships and
Whitelion recognises that these do take time to develop.
3.5
Agree to processes for selecting organisations to be funded and the nature
of projects to be jointly supported
This is not relevant to this arrangement, as Whitelion initiated the partnerships in relation
to its own Mentoring Program.
3.6
Ensure the right people are at the table
Not relevant, as the partners do not come together around the table. This is something
that Whitelion is keen to explore in the future. It is felt that there could be great benefits in
bringing the partners together and developing a joint understanding of how each
stakeholder adds value to the service delivery. In considering bringing partners together
however, Whitelion does not want to create additional paperwork and/or accountability
requirements that could be burdensome.
3.7
Ensure there is an evaluation framework
As per 2.9, it is agreed that this is important, and is currently still being developed to
ensure more rigour than in the past.
3.8
Develop an exit strategy for both or either party
There is not currently an exit strategy, but Whitelion does have some idea of commitments
and time frames with each partner. They agree that a more collaborative approach to this
could be useful, but would want it developed on the basis that funding continues as long
as the program is effective. Whitelion is looking for a continuation strategy, rather than exit
strategy for individual programs, although recognises that there is the need to plan for
funding from particular stakeholders to cease.
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3.9
Communicate frankly throughout the project time frame
Communication between Whitelion and individual stakeholders is strong, but not
necessarily between stakeholders. It was considered that opportunities to come together
and provide insight into each partners’ role in the collaboration could enhance
relationships and help deliver better outcomes for young people.
3.10
Develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
There is no overall MOU with the partners in the Mentoring Program, rather there are
funding agreements with individual partners. There are MOUs with the other service
delivery agencies that also provide services within the Mentoring Program. Whitelion
tends to look at developing a ‘statement of intent’ which provides a shared understanding
of how different stakeholders can work towards common goals.
3.11
Other comments
While the Whitelion Youth Mentoring Program does not currently represent a true
collaboration, both they and their funding partners are keen to explore how to move
towards this. They believe that a set of guiding principles will be a positive step to assist in
this.
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