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 can help you to feel more positive about your cleft and your future, and feel better able to cope with cleft-related challenges.
This page is aimed at young people. For information about Cleft++ aimed at parents, carers and family members of young people born with a cleft see this page.
How can Cleft++ support you?
There are lots of ways a mentor could help support you with what’s going on in your life, including:
- helping you to develop coping skills in dealing with setbacks and challenges
- giving you a space to talk about cleft-related challenges and how to handle these
- helping you to feel understood and know that you are not alone
- practicing and developing your communication skills
- sharing suggestions for other places you 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 for Cleft++.
You will need permission from a parent or carer if you are under 14 years old.
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 you.
You will receive an invite to a Pre-Mentoring Session, usually held on Zoom.
We’ll talk to you about the mentoring journey and how it will work. We’ll also chat about the kinds of things you’d like to discuss with your mentor.
We’ll ask if you would like to meet your mentor on Zoom before mentoring starts.
We will send you and your parent or carer special Cleft++ Packs including information, a welcome survey, and a mentoring agreement.
We will ask you to sign the mentoring agreement before you start speaking to your 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.
You will be invited to join an online mentoring platform called ‘Brightside,’ where you’ll be matched with a mentor.
See below for more information on how Brightside helps us to keep you safe.
When you’re ready, you can create an avatar and start talking to your mentor through Brightside
All the messages with your mentor will happen via Brightside. You can send messages at a time which suits you.
You’ll need to spend up to about an hour each week messaging your mentor. Your mentor will reply to any messages within three days. We suggest you aim to send at least one message each week, but more would be great if you can.
You can choose how long you’d like to be mentored. We’ve set four months as a guideline, as this is often enough time for mentees (like you) and mentors to get to know each other, and message about the main things you’d like to talk about, but it’s okay if you need mentoring for a shorter or longer time.
You 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 mentor will talk to you about the end of mentoring a few weeks before.
They will tell you about other CLAPA services you might want to join and give you other ideas of what you could do after mentoring.
We will send you a survey to fill in so you can tell us if mentoring has helped. This is very important, as it helps us improve the service in the future.
We’ll ask you if you would like to meet up with your mentor on Zoom to say goodbye.
You can come back to mentoring in the future if you 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 where it is helpful. You’ll be matched with a mentor based on what you tell us you’d like to discuss in the sign-up form. Mentors will focus on creating a space where you feel comfortable to share how you are feeling, to listen to what you are saying in your messages and from there help you 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 you need, 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 for Cleft++ Mentoring
Complete the below form to register for Cleft++ Mentoring.
If you are under 14 years old, we will need permission from a parent or carer before you can take part.
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 you
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
We will choose a mentor based on your answers in the signup form. We will look at the topics you’d like to discuss and the concerns you’d like help with.
We recommend that you to chat to your mentor for the full sixteen weeks, but we won’t force you! If you get what you need from mentoring in less time, that’s absolutely fine. We will just ask you to complete a form about your experience.
Yes. Mentoring can run alongside any other support you are receiving. It’s important to understand that mentoring is not a mental health service, and that it can’t replace counselling or psychological support. Sometimes you might need to focus on your mental health and come back to mentoring later on, we will talk to you about this. Please tell us the details of how your mental health is affecting you and what support you already have in place.
Only CLAPA staff who have been trained and have a criminal records check can access messages you send or that your mentor sends you.
Conversations are confidential (between you, your mentor, and CLAPA) except where we are worried about serious harm to you or someone else. In this case, we may need to involve someone else, probably your parent, GP, and/or local social care team.
You may have mixed feelings when you’ve completed all your sessions with your mentor. You and your mentor might feel sad that the relationship is ending, which is normal. It may be that you’re still facing problems or difficulties. We hope the sessions you have with your mentor will help you to feel more confident about dealing with situations when the mentor is not there, and we also hope that the end of mentoring will not be the end of your relationship with CLAPA. There are other opportunities to get involved, which can offer you more support to help you reach your goals.
Yes! If you’d like to return to mentoring to talk through some new goals or other concerns, you’d be very welcome to sign up again.
CLAPA Children and Young People's Team: Get in touch
Get in touch with CLAPA's Children and Young People's Team. Messages are sent to [email protected]. Please note this is not an emergency service and messages are not checked outside of working hours.