Dominic Somers, son of our member, Stan, presented an excellent overview of his experiences mentoring young people in or approaching a crisis situation.  With a teaching background Dominic has experienced a wide range of activities working with young people, especially those in crisis.  Following initial teaching placement he worked with the Big Brother programme mentoring young people, in particular  enjoyable contact and support of a local young boy in need of assistance and direction requiring regular  support over a two-year period. This experience led Dominic to join ‘YES’ (Youth & Family Services) Youth Connection where he has developed a mentoring programme, interviewing, training then  matching volunteer   mentors with young people in crisis … with pleasing results in many cases. YES (Youth & Family Services) is a community-based non profit organisation, which in partnership with the community, strives to provide a coordinated range of support services to meet the changing needs of young people and their families. The Youth Connections Program is aimed at delivering services to young people between the ages of 11 to 19 years who are most at risk of disengaging from education or training and therefore not attaining Year 12 or equivalent and not making a successful transition to further study, training or work. An initiative created to assist the Youth Connections Team to engage these young people is the Mentoring Program. The objective of the Mentoring Program is to help participants of the Youth Connections Program. Dominic mentioned that despite minimal government funding more is always needed particularly in the area of mentor access and training.