Mosaic is delighted to announce that our Ex-Offender Mentoring Programme has been accredited with the Approved Provider Quality Standard (APS) from the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, to complement the achievement of this standard across our other mentoring programmes. The APS is the national quality standard designed specifically for all types of mentoring and befriending projects, with projects meeting the requirements of the standard accredited for three years.

The APS has been written and developed over a period of over 10 years and has evolved from the knowledge, experiences and expertise of mentoring and befriending projects. The standard comprises 10 requirements across four key areas supporting safe and effective practice in mentoring and befriending: management and operations; service users (mentees); mentors and befrienders; and the mentoring and befriending relationship. To date over 1,000 projects nationally have been accredited and include Age UK, Mind, Action for Children, Marie Curie and numerous local authority-led schemes.

Mosaic’s Head of Operations, Kim O’Reilly, commenting on the accreditation, said: “We are thrilled to have been awarded the APS. Our key strength is in the quality and depth of our programmes, and with such a sensitive intervention in prisons, we are delighted that our processes have been externally recognised for their quality. This is a real testament to the hard work of the Mosaic team, and of course our mentors, without whom this wouldn’t be possible”.

Commenting on the final report, which praised the value of the programme in lowering re-offending rates among its participating beneficiaries, Mosaic’s Managing Director Jonathan Freeman said: “We constantly strive for excellence in our service provision. This award recognises our excellent mentoring services and we are so thankful to all of our mentors and partner prisons up and down the country for making our mentoring services what they are.”

Find out more about the APS award.