Dear Councillor Bremner,
Highland Council’s decision to end its funding for school-based coordinators working on the groundbreaking MCR Pathways pupil mentoring programme is wrong in every way.
MCR supports the region’s most disadvantaged young people, especially those who the Council is the corporate parent of. As mentors, we have direct experience of the huge value of the programme and the life changing differences it makes.
Despite their talents and through no fault of their own, the young people had been predestined to fail. But since its inception, MCR Pathways and its coordinators have ensured thousands of vulnerable young people have instead been supported to lead productive and confident lives.
Removing this support will have a profound impact on their education outcomes, job choices and life chances. And that’s not just for a budget period, it is for a lifetime. The Highlands will eventually pick up all manner of different costs for this failure.
We all hope that sense will prevail and that corporate parent responsibilities will drive the final decisions. Your young people need and deserves the opportunity to realise their potential and absolutely not be determined by their postcode or circumstances.
1,026 signatures so far.
Let’s get this to 1,500 signatures!
Sign the Petition
I, the undersigned, call on Raymond Bremner and Highland Council to reverse the cuts they have made to the school based MCR Pathways coordinators, who are essential in running the programme.
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Signatories
What these cuts mean
The MCR programme is transformational and its delivery relies on the MCR Pathways Coordinators in each school.
- Over 350 young people will lose the support of their Pathways Coordinator. Over 150 could lose the support of their volunteer mentor.
- The potential social cost of failure is massive. The futures of our most disadvantaged young people are being put at risk not just for a budget period but for a lifetime.
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MCR Pathways is a SCIO regulated by OSCR, Scottish Charity number SC045816