COACH (Creating Opportunities and Casting Hope) is a community-strengthening program that aims to empower individuals and families through one-to-one mentoring, breaking generational cycles of poverty and family breakdown.

COACH partners with not-for-profits and churches to train volunteer mentors and match them with individuals in need. Over 12 months, COACH participants meet with their mentors each week.

A COACH mentor is a friend with purpose, offering practical help and mentoring towards life goals. These goals include education, employment, training, improved mental health, reduction in addictive habits, financial management, housing, family cohesion, decrease in social isolation, and improved physical and emotional wellbeing. Mentoring is a way to bring out the best in people and help them make use of their own resources. It also promotes individual responsibility and builds community cohesion.

Click here to hear more from co-author of COACH, Mark Matthews, as he shares with us how a missional venture started in order to assist the poor and marginalised, has now grown into an incredible Empowered Faith Community which is now changing the lives of numbers of people on the Mornington Peninsula.

(COACH Network is operated by Crossway LifeCare in partnership with Mission Australia).