Cleft++ uses a specialist online platform to safely connect 10-17-year-olds born with a cleft to a trained mentor. These mentors are young adults born with a cleft and they will draw on their experiences to offer personalised support.
This service is intended to help young people to feel more positive about their cleft and their future, and feel best able to cope with cleft-related challenges.
This page is aimed at parents, carers and family members of young people born with a cleft. For information about Cleft++ aimed at young people, see this page.
How can Cleft++ support your child?
There are lots of ways a mentor could help support your child with what’s going on in their life, including:
- helping them to develop coping skills in dealing with setbacks and challenges
- giving them a space to talk about cleft-related challenges and how to handle these
- helping them to feel understood and know that they are not alone
- practicing and developing their communication skills
- sharing suggestions for other places they could go for help and support
The support I received in mentoring was incredible! I really appreciated being able to talk to someone who understood what I was going through as I haven’t always had that opportunity. In the past few months, I have become much more confident when it comes to my cleft.Young person who received mentoring through Cleft++
How Cleft++ Mentoring works
Complete this form to register your child for Cleft++.
It’s usually best if your child completes this form themselves, though they may need your help. They will also need permission from a parent or carer if they are under 13 years old.
Please ensure your child understands this service and is keen to take part before registering them.
Your child will receive an invite to a Pre-Mentoring Session, usually held on Zoom.
Our team will explain the mentoring journey and how it will work.
We’ll chat to your child about the things they would like to talk about (via messages on the secure Brightside platform) with their mentor.
We’ll ask if they would like to meet their mentor on zoom before mentoring starts.
We will send you and your child special Cleft++ Packs including information, a welcome survey, and a mentoring agreement.
We will ask young people to sign the mentoring agreement before they start speaking to their mentor. This agreement will set out expectations and boundaries so that it is clear how the mentoring relationship will work and what to do if there is a problem.
Your child will be invited to join an online mentoring platform called ‘Brightside,’ where they’ll be matched with a mentor.
See below for more information on how Brightside helps us keep the children and young people using Cleft++ safe.
When your child is ready, they can create an avatar and start talking to their mentor through Brightside
All the messages with their mentor will happen via Brightside. They can send messages at a time which suits them.
They will need to spend up to about an hour each week messaging their mentor. Their mentor will reply to any messages within three days. We suggest your child aim to send at least one message each week, but more would be great if they can.
Your child can choose how long they’d like to be mentored. We’ve set four months as a guideline, as this is often enough time for the young people and their mentors to get to know each other, and message about the main things they’d like to talk about, but it’s okay if they need mentoring for a shorter or longer time.
They might want to talk about:
- Going through surgery
- Dealing with negative comments
- Feeling low in confidence
- Taking time off from school for appointments and surgery
- Moving from children’s to adults’ services
CLAPA staff will also check in with both mentees and mentors throughout the process to see how everything is going. These messages will also be sent through Brightside.
Your child’s mentor will talk to them about the end of mentoring a few weeks before.
They will tell your child about other CLAPA services they might want to join and give them other ideas of what they could do after mentoring.
We will send your child a survey to fill in so they can tell us if mentoring has helped. This is very important, as it helps us improve the service in the future.
We’ll ask your child if they would like to meet up with their mentor on Zoom to say goodbye.
Your child can come back to mentoring in the future if they want to.
About Cleft++ Mentors
Cleft++ Mentors are CLAPA volunteers born with a cleft and aged 18 to 25. All of our mentors complete mentoring and safeguarding training.
Mentors have a range of cleft-related experiences, which they will share with young people where it is helpful. Young people will be matched with a mentor based on what they told us they would like to discuss in their sign-up form. Mentors will focus on creating a space where young people feel comfortable to share how they are feeling, to listen to what they are saying in their messages and from there help them to set goals and action plans.
Mentors are not experts or trained counsellors; they can’t provide advice about medical treatments or give mental health support. If this is the kind of help and advice your child needs, we can help you get in touch with your Cleft Team or GP.
My Cleft++ mentor helped me feel so much less isolated than before and it was a great comfort knowing that I could receive the advice I needed at any time!Young person who received mentoring through Cleft++
About the Brightside platform
All mentoring conversations will happen on a secure platform called Brightside, in one-to-one chat messages. There will not be any emails, zoom calls or face-to-face meetings. This platform has been developing its online mentoring service for young people for twenty years.
Brightside and CLAPA have access to all messages. Safety measures are in place so that particular words, including surnames, addresses, attachments to messages, social media details, and safeguarding-related stop/trigger words (which suggest someone is at risk of harm), will be alerted to the team.
Register your child for Cleft++ Mentoring
Complete the below form to register your child for Cleft++ Mentoring.
It’s usually best if your child completes this form, though they may need your help with certain parts. If your child is under 14, we will need permission from a parent or carer before they can take part.
Please ensure your child understands this service and is keen to take part before registering them.
We ask a lot of questions on this form. It’s important you answer all of these questions, as they help us to make sure mentoring is the right service for your child. If we think your child might need a different service, we’ll talk to you about this.
We have a small number of Cleft++ mentors, so there may be a short wait before we can match you with a mentor. We will be in touch to let you know we have your sign-up form and how long you might need to wait to be matched
If you are a professional working with a young person who could benefit from Cleft++, please send them this page and encourage them to register!
Frequently Asked Questions
- All the volunteers are trusted and trained by CLAPA staff. They receive regular support and supervision and have a point of contact at CLAPA if they have any concerns.
- Only CLAPA staff with safeguarding training and appropriate background and DBS checks can access the platform; CLAPA has strict policies and procedures about which staff can have direct contact with and access data about children and young people.
- CLAPA can check the full text of conversations on the Brightside platform anytime. During the mentoring, we will check conversations periodically.
- Brightside is a platform created specifically for mentoring young people. Safeguarding the welfare of young people is built into all its policies and processes.
- There are specific ‘stop words’ that will freeze messages until a member of CLAPA staff can review the content. Links and attachments are also held until a moderator can approve the content.
- It’s important that young people taking part feel able to express themselves openly and honestly. For this reason, we will not share what is being discussed in conversations with mentors unless we have a safeguarding concern (e.g., we are worried about someone’s safety or well-being).
- Please be rest assured that CLAPA has strong safeguarding policies and procedures and will take all necessary action to ensure your child remains safe while receiving support from us.
The volunteer Cleft++ Mentors are not experts or trained counsellors; they can’t give mental health support or provide the kind of service that a trained therapist or other professional can.
In the signup form, we ask mentees about other help they receive. This is not so that we might exclude them from Cleft ++ but rather so that we understand them and their needs and can best match with and prepare their mentor.