young disabled people and those with special educational needs are too often isolated, feel exclusion from mainstream community groups, and therefore are very likely to drift away from employment, training and education when they leave school. Our me2 programme uses an effective peer mentoring approach to help the young people move from from dependence to independence ...

For some young people, accessing local youth groups and mainstream leisure time opportunities is not straightforward. When so much of your young life is spent using targeted or specialist services, it can become very hard to believe that mainstream opportunities are for you too. Combine this with some very possible bad experiences - perhaps bullying - in mainstream settings, understandably protective parents, and a lack of tolerance and understanding among many young people, and the outcome is simple. Isolation and exclusion in your own community. This is what it can be like for many young disabled people or those with additional educational needs.

Our me2 programme is based on research and consultation with young disabled people, their parents and many different organisations and agencies. The programme is designed to address the three main barriers to inclusion and participation:

• personal choice combined with a supportive relationship with someone of similar age: we recruit, train and support young people to be Inclusion Mentors, who help a young disabled person set and achieve inclusion based goals.
• safe and welcome environment: we provide practical inclusion focused training and support to the adults who run mainstream youth clubs, centres and projects.
• supportive parents: we involve parents, give them support and encourage them to enourage their children to strive for inclusion.

We deliver our me2 programme through local area based projects. Watch this space for more news.