INTRODUCTION
It’s been another busy year at The Mullany Fund ( TMF), and I am delighted to introduce our key achievements for 2023-2024 in this Annual Report. The Charity continues to be committed to its vision of addressing the barriers that some young people might face when trying to move forward into STEM areas, as well as developing exciting plans for the future.
TMF have seen a few changes this year, and one of them involved the departure of Tom Hutchins, our Communications Officer. In the 18 months he has been with the organisation he has been instrumental at moving forward our visibility, either through social media or attending conferences. TMF wishes him well for the future.
Our innovative digital matching system continues to provide a fantastic infrastructure as we expand our numbers over a wider area of operation, Our integrated in-house bilingual e-Mentoring app, developed and piloted in August 2022 continues to work effectively and we have big ideas for its development over the coming year. An exciting moment from this year was becoming a finalist in the Youth Work Excellence Awards Wales in the digital Innovation category .After making a film about our work ( courtesy of Blue Stag Productions), supported by a mentor and mentee, we attended a presentation evening in Llandudno and were delighted and humbled to see the huge amount of voluntary work going on in Wales, much of it led by young people.
As a result of our increased visibility, over the reporting period, our mentor recruitment process has allowed us to populate our Mentor Bank with volunteer mentors from a wider range of STEM disciplines, and we are thankful for this additional support. In addition, we continue to have a large number of returning mentors, which we feel is always a good sign.
TMF have continued to expand our presence geographically, making connections in Pembrokeshire, as well as consolidating existing relationships in and out of schools. We also undertook a survey in the summer of 2024 with young people to ascertain continuing need and we know that young people continue to benefit because we receive consistently good feedback through the impact surveys that we administer at the end of each session.
We continued to provide a mixed delivery form of our work experience days this year – we were supported in our face-to-face deliveries by the Assistive Technologies Innovation Centre and Swansea University Nursing department, and we have been able to hold some fantastic on-line talks by mentors for new specialities including a talk on space science and on particle physics, both of which were very well attended and extremely interesting to listen to.
As always, the key to our success has been our volunteers, our work exeprience providers and the teachers who help facilitate our work in their schools and colleges. We are so grateful for their continuing support.
RICHARD BOWEN, CHAIR OF TRUSTEES
Our achievements this year
The Mullany e-Mentoring project became operational in mid-November 2014, with phase 1 ending in December 2017. Phase 2 began in April 2018.
It has been exciting to progress into the ninth year overall of our Mullany e-Mentoring project, Together Making Futures. We aim to reduce the barriers faced by young people experiencing disadvantage, who wish to enter life-science, healthcare and wider STEM careers. This year we have further expanded our mentor base to include those working in physics, maths, ICT and chemistry
At its core, Together Making Futures seeks to educate and connect. By bridging the gap between industry professionals and aspirational young people, the project strives to bring the experience of those in the industry to young people who may not otherwise have this valuable insight into a profession. Moreover, it aims to ignite fresh ambitions and unexplored career avenues for its participants. Our approach is to deliver a free online mentoring service that aims to connect 14–19-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds with a mentor who is studying or working in an area which might be of interest to their student. Through an interactive, online process, the mentor provides support to help them achieve their future goals, whether this is academically or vocationally related, as well as more generic support. The project also continues to run two additional elements, Future Routes and Insight talks, with the former providing work experience/shadowing opportunities and the latter providing online careers talks from our mentors.
Our key achievements for this year were as follows:
We have consolidated our key work, continuing to deliver the key impacts for young people directly involved in our e-Mentoring project, increasing knowledge and skills and removing barriers through e-Mentoring support and careers advice, and work experience. In the last year, we have expanded to work across 8 Local Authority areas in south Wales, namely, Swansea,Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Merthyr, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Blaenau Gwent, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, with links developed in Torfaen.
We have developed our publicity to promote our project to target beneficiaries across all of Wales, including one recorded presentation in Welsh and one in English.
We have developed new strategic connections to recruit mentors with new specialties, from across the UK including a wider range of STEM professionals, specifically physics and chemistry mentors where we were low in numbers. Supporting this, a new connection has been made with Student Futures Work Experience Officer at Cardiff University, regarding mentor recruitment as well as Discovery at Swansea university.
We’ve also recruited target young people from across 30 schools, as well as voluntary organisations and the EOTAS scheme.
We’ve developed a new connection with In2Science to provide mutually beneficial connections in terms of recruitment and referral.
We have continued to use robust monitoring systems to measure our impact. Our key approach is using exit questionnaires at the end of each session, enabling us to confirm or otherwise that what we are doing reflects the needs of our participants. In order to embed a more structured incorporation of young people’s views, this year, together with the exit questionnaires after each session we have completed a survey with over 80 respondents ( former mentees) about the impact the project has had on them, their perceptions on ongoing need for this project and areas where it could be expanded and improved. It became obvious that a key need is developing links with local industry/more work experience opportunities. To this end we envisage doing more in-depth mapping of future employment needs in local industries. We have started this process- for example making links with some industry through for example the 4theregion conference and the New Green Economy Conference in Swansea Arena. We have had positive response about opportunities for collaboration with the Hywel Dda UHB Future workforce engagement scheme and Apprenticeship academy. We’ve also networked at the launch of SPARC initiative in Pembrokeshire, liaised with Hiraeth Energy and Cardiff Capital Region project looking at opportunities to collaborate with the Compound Semiconductors outreach programme. Finally, we were able to raise our profile as finalist in the Youth Excellence awards in Llandudno after being shortlisted in the Digital Innovation category for TMF project work.
Here is what some of our project stakeholders have had to say about their involvement.
Teacher
'Having worked with TMF since the inception of their project, I have seen first-hand how it has achieved its purpose. (Our school) serves an area of high socio-economic deprivation, with 50% of our pupils living in the 30% most deprived neighbourhoods in Wales. Many of our students have taken part in this project and been connected to mentors who provided targeted and sector-specific support. A large proportion of our students are the first in their family to attend higher education. As a result, their mentors have been crucial in supporting them with career guidance, information about applying to university and personal statement support. Students who have taken part in the project have gone on to a wide range of careers, including medicine, nursing, midwifery, zoology, public health administration, nuclear medicine and medical engineering. These are careers that the students could not have imagined working in when they first started in the school at the age of 11. Almost all of these students have faced huge barriers due to their socio-economic circumstances and TMF has been crucial in providing support to overcome these challenges.'
Mentors
'I had a really lovely experience during this e-Mentoring session with both students. They were really engaged and made the most of the session. Excited to return for future sessions.'
'Really lovely to see their motivation and enthusiasm and to be able to encourage this, feels good to be able to share my experiences if that can help others.'
'It's lovely to work with someone and feel them exploring new ideas and understanding their options and opportunities. '
‘I really enjoyed mentoring this term. My student seemed genuinely interested in engaging with the programme, which I appreciated.’
‘I love being a mentor for the Mullany Fund. There are a vast range of personalities which are interesting to deal with, so it's great for me to find new ways to go around the student based on how they learn. I absolutely love it when a student engages - it doesn't have to be much, a couple of questions will do.’
Students
In relation to their involvement in e-Mentoring itself, we collected the following statements:
‘My mentor has been a great help. She has been honest in her answers and has supported
me to understand my career interest by providing supportive links, questionnaires etc I
really enjoy chatting to my tutor and she has experience in many areas that I am interested in.’
‘It's helped me gain first hand advice from my mentor. It's enabled me to meet other
students who have similar aspirations.’
'The only local opportunities I had were because of the e-Mentoring. At the point of my first
mentoring session in year 10, my school withdrew work experience from our curriculum.
Despite being proactive, there were no opportunities in my area.'
‘I got to know more about my dream job”
“The project has helped me to get mentored into making the right decisions for myself. It
has helped in in time management with specifically my studies because I was facing
challenges in studying and managing my time. I can confidently say I see a lot of progress
of late”
“My mentor was very supportive and really helped me gain an understanding of what I
needed to do to get on my ideal career path!!
'The themes created a focus on things that I didn’t think about and ensured that I didn’t only
focus on the things I knew I wanted answers to. They allowed for more questions to be
asked than I had originally.'
'Receiving mentoring has helped me consider and plan my next steps for the future
It is very daunting and hard to know whether a career is the right choice for you.
Future Routes and Insight Talks
Alongside the e-Mentoring process, we also provide work experience/shadowing opportunities and career talks, and these have enabled different sections of the community to connect and have been received very positively., with mentees increasing their understanding of local opportunities or careers they hadn't previously considered. This year has again provided some exciting and useful opportunities for our young participants. We’ve continued to provide face-to-face opportunities with the Assistive Technologies Innovation Centre (ATIC) team based in Swansea, and the nursing, midwifery and medicine team at Swansea University. At the former workshop, students learnt about technologies such as 3D scanning, printing
and VR and how these are being used in hospitals and elsewhere to improve people’s lives. They also got to get hands on with the tech and print something of their own! The health workshop in Swansea allowed students to explore pathways into various healthcare careers.
In addition, we have been delighted to have hosted an online questions and answer session with a space scientist from Imperial College, London, as well as a physicist working for CERN in Switzerland. There is clearly a huge demand for information on these subject areas which perhaps do not have such a high profile. or which include speakers who wouldn’t be otherwise accessible.
Plans for future workshops have been made around developing recycled silver ink for more sustainable products, Zombie Plastics, (plastic recycling processes) and a local organisation providing recycling technology in Llanelli.
Here are some of the things our students said about these:
‘’I really enjoyed learning about Maggot Therapy. I am happy and satisfied that my questions and doubts were answered and cleared. Overall, I really loved the session and don't feel like there is anything to improve on.’’
‘’The workshop was really useful for me. I was able to know about the courses, things they do and how to get there.’’
Careers talks
This year, we’ve continued to distribute our online vlogs of ‘A day in their life’ which have been received very positively by our mentees. In addition we were lucky enough to be recorded by Blue Stag production as part of our application in the Digital Innovation category for the Youth Excellence Awards Wales. This process included recorded interviews with one of our Mentors, Brenna, and one of our year 11 mentees, Lilly, as well as staff members - and we very much enjoyed the process. Thanks to them both for their contributions and support for the programme and thanks to Blue Stag for making the process less terrifying.
Mentor and student matches continue to work well…
We continue to use our innovative IT system, which has the potential to match every child in Wales with a mentor, and thus support the development of the future workforce in Wales in a cost-effective way. Using multiple factors to define the interest area of our target students, the automatic system will identify their best match in terms of those who can assist them most effectively. Our system easily enables us to scale-up the number of mentees reached in-line with the number of mentors we are able to recruit, and this has enabled us to offer our support across all of Wales this year. Through developing new connections with potential mentor sources, we continue to be able to largely match student and mentor with their first area of interest and speciality, and this is of great benefit to both.
During this reporting period we also further developed our own, in-house moderated bilingual e-Mentoring platform, and this is now used for every session, with positive feedback. The bilingual element of this platform for students who wish to speak to a mentor in Welsh, provided one is available in their specialist area. Mentora is now easy and effective to use and consistently receives positive feedback. We have plans to further develop it as a hub of STEM opportunities in the future.
We really do appreciate our mentors and the wonderful advice the give!…
Mentors are recruited from across the UK and now form part of a Mentor Bank with over 300 DBS checked mentors. This year we have significantly increased the specialties that we offer and can now give mentees support around career pathways into physics, chemistry, ICT and maths related careers.
All of those who are going to be involved in an e-Mentoring session must have an up-to-date enhanced DBS check, to ensure safeguarding of the young people involved. We also take every measure to ensure that our mentors remain safe as well. All matched mentors continue to be provided with in house training, including the important topic of safeguarding.
We continue to have many mentors who return from session to session, something we are very proud of.
All mentors have the option to return an exit questionnaire at the end of each session.
We know how important it is to support our mentees with mentors working across a wide variety of professions, and below we’ve included some biographies, provided by our mentors of the work they do:
‘’I have just completed my Masters degree in Chemistry with Medicinal sciences, and am now preparing to undertake a PGCE in secondary chemistry. Prior to university, I studied each of the sciences and maths at A-level. As part of my degree I also undertook a 6-month industrial placement with a BioTech company. As a result of this educational history I believe I’m in an ideal position to offer my advice and guidance to students concerning a variety of things, including A-levels, life at university, chemistry, science careers, and more!’’
‘’I am a veterinary surgeon and worked in practice for over 20 years. I now teach at University where I am both a clinical teacher but also an Admissions tutor. I am passionate about diversifying the vet profession to make it as accessible as possible to people from all walks of life and work in nationwide groups with other vet schools to improve social mobility and access to vet school. I have teenage children and many pets. I am originally from Wales but only lived there until I was 2I am 24 years old that is currently working towards getting my degree in Diagnostic Radiography to become a fully qualified diagnostic radiographer; Im the person that you would come to get your x-ray, CT, and MRI scans done. Whilst I do this, I work in the NHS, assisting the radiographers and patients in the department. Outside of work and studies, I like to roller skate with my friends, eating food and listen to music. I have been a mentor for 6 years and have a passion for helping others achieve their goals’’
‘’I am Medical Engineer. Currently, I am doing a PhD in Medical Engineering with the School of Medicine at University. My project requires me to investigate the measurement of the viscoelastic properties of blood using an optical technique known as Laser Speckle Rheology. In simple terms, I am trying to find a method to analyse blood clot status using a Laser. The reason I am doing this project is that we need to find an easier, quicker and cheaper way to find blood clot status of patients with any sort of blood disease to enable accurate and faster diagnosis and treatment. I have an undergraduate Masters degree in Medical Engineering where I learned how engineering and medical science are combined to solve real-life problems.’’
‘’I am 27 years old and committed to helping and mentoring young people to achieve their full potential.’’
‘’Teaching Oral Biology and Biochemistry I left Bishop Vaughan in Swansea in 2016 to pursue a degree in Biochemistry, followed by a PhD in Protein Biology. While working on my PhD in Cardiac protein Biology at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, I began teaching an introductory chemistry class at the dental school across the street. During my PhD, I was shortlisted for two outstanding and inspiring teaching awards. The dental school has since supported my transition into a full-time lecturer position. I now spend my days working with students, teaching dental sciences and providing student support. A passionate scientist, I love discussing all things subcellular, particularly in relation to dentistry. I also have experience interviewing prospective students for the program and running UCAS workshops.’’
‘’I grew up in a small village outside of Neath and attended Cwmtawe community school. I then studied at Neath Port Talbot College for my A-levels. I have a huge passion for sport and the human body and always wanted to become a Physiotherapist After a 3 year degree and 3 years working in the NHS as a Physiotherapist, I have now taken on a new challenge and currently in my second year studying medicine with the goal of becoming a Doctor.’’
All mentors and charity staff must hold a valid Disclosure and Barring Service enhanced check.
Social media
We have continued to enhance our visibility across social media, with our regular monthly blogs and regular posts, and we also attended a workshop about raising our profile on other youth friendly platforms, including TikTok.
Award for Excellence
The Award for Excellence is given every year to students at either the University of the West of England (The Mullany Award for Excellence in Physiotherapy) or Swansea University (The Mullany Award for Excellence in Medicine). In 2024…
CHARITY DETAILS
Charity Name
The name of the charity is The Mullany Fund.
Registered Charity Number
The registered number of the charity is 1188554.
Charity’s Principal Address
The charity’s principal address is The Mullany
Fund, PO Box 29, Swansea, SA9 5AB.
Trustees
The trustees of the charity, during this reporting period are:
Mrs Rachel Bowen
Mr Richard Bowen
Mr Adam Mullany
Mrs Marilyn Mullany
Mr. Nick Russill
Dr Mair Williams
All served from 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019
Dr Janine Roberts joined the Board of Trustees on the 1st of September 2021
FUNDING
We rely entirely on voluntary/grant contributions, which can include legacy and wills.
Charity Objectives
The charity’s objectives are:
To advance the education of young people, in particular but not exclusively, in the life science sector and to undertake such charitable purposes or to make donations to such a charitable institution or institutions at such a time or times and in such a manner as the trustees may in their absolute discretion see fit.
Social Mobility
The Mullany Fund is a social mobility charity that achieves change through education. The Fund works to give every young person the opportunity of accessing a career in the life sciences, regardless of background.
Fundraising
The Mullany Fund raises money from events, individual donors, trusts and foundations.
Public Benefit
Trustees adhere to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit.
Overall impacts September 2023-August 2024
What did we achieve?
The following were the key indicators we used to measure the impact that our project has
been having on young people in the communities that we were targeting, and the results
presented are the cumulative responses from our exit questionnaires, delivered after each
session, across the reporting year, to mentors and mentees, as well as a survey carried out
more generally.
Inspiration:
We asked students to respond to the following statements:
Inspiration:
- as a result of the support I received through the project, I feel confident that I will be able
to go to university in the future.
80% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement
Knowledge:
We asked students to respond to the following statements:
- As a result of the support I received through the project, I understand more about the
steps I need to take to reach my career goal.
86% of our students agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.
-As a result of the support through the project I now .understand more about the range of
jobs that might involve STEM or life science subjects
87% of our students agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.
Skills:
We asked students to respond to the following statements:
- As a result of the support I’ve received through the project, I’ve got tools which will help
me to manage my studies better, to support my future goals.
81% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.
- As a result of the support I've got through the project, I've gained tips on skills to improve
my communications (verbal or written) with people.
61% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.