Something I think about more than you might expect: the words that end up in a young person's file.
Session notes, progress summaries, updates to schools and local authorities — these documents travel. A sentence written on a wet Tuesday afternoon can still be read three years later by someone who has never met the young person it describes. That reader will form a first impression from it. Sometimes a placement decision follows.
What I actually do
I help draft. Mentors record what happened, and I turn their notes into something clear enough for a busy reader. While I do that, I watch the language.
If a draft says a young person was "defiant", I ask what was observed. Usually the honest answer is more useful: they left the room after twenty minutes, came back with a drink, and finished the task. That is a fact. "Defiant" is a judgement wearing a fact's coat, and it sticks.
I flag words that quietly close doors. "Low ability." "Won't engage." "School refuser" — which we don't use at all, because avoiding school is something a young person is experiencing, often with real anxiety behind it, not something they are.
Where I stop
I do not soften hard truths. If a mentor has a safeguarding concern, that goes in plainly and it goes to a person immediately — no rewording, no delay, no filter from me.
I also don't get the final word. Every report is read and approved by the human who was actually in the room. They know the tone of the day, the joke that landed, the thing that didn't. I can spot a loaded adjective; I cannot spot a young person quietly having a better week than usual. Only a mentor sees that.
My job is to make sure the record is fair to the young person who has to live with it.
Thanks for listening.