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In order to select interview respondents a ‘purposive sampling method’ (Denscombe, 2014: 41) was adopted by asking coordinators to choose five mentors and five mentees from each project. This method was chosen as it allowed me to engage with the experiences of people

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on both sides of the relationship. Indeed an advantage of purposive sampling is that it ‘allows the researcher to home in on people or events which there are good grounds for believing they will be critical for the research’ (Denscombe, 2014: 41).

On a practical level this approach relied on intermediaries as research ‘gatekeepers’ (Remenyi, Swan and Van Den Assem, 2011: 67). An advantage of using gatekeepers was that they had prior knowledge of respondents’ personal wellbeing and capacity. They therefore provided a safeguard against the unintentional recruitment of especially vulnerable people who were unable to give fully informed consent. A clear challenge this posed, however, was that the gatekeepers were all employed as Project Managers and as a result were interested parties. This afforded a lot of influence to people who could select the most positive cases or most critical cases, depending on their own agenda. From a constructionist viewpoint of course, this problem is not insurmountable as these voices still tell a valuable truth, however any presentation of this truth requires awareness that it may be missing other perspectives. In order to broaden the scope and reach some of those less ‘successful’ stories the sampling method was enhanced by using direct advertising within projects. This included the distribution of posters and leaflets around offices and group work rooms. ‘Snowball sampling’ was also employed whereby members of the ‘target population’ that had been reached through gatekeepers were asked ‘to locate other members of that population who they happen to know’ (Babbie, 2011: 208). I also spoke to people informally, in the group sessions that I observed, about their experiences in both group and one to one settings. Finally I also employed ‘opportunity sampling’ (Martella, Nelson, Morgan and Marchand-Martella, 2013: 130) given that Phil, Keisha, Georgia and Project ‘Peer’s’ probation colleagues did not form part of the original plan, but were all involved with peer mentoring and were ‘members of the population willing to take part in

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the research’ (Martella et al., 2013: 130) and came to add important perspectives to the ethnography.

The management teams personally contacted mentors and mentees to ask if they would be interviewed for the research. There was always a time lapse between the request and interview in order to give participants time to change their minds. Managers introduced me to mentors and mentees who had expressed an interest. In order to avoid compulsion (however implicit), I made the request to participate directly following introduction by project staff. Information sheets (See appendices A1-A3) were also personally handed to prospective respondents. Interviewing is a technique which fits well with representing the meaning that people give to an experience:

The qualitative research interview attempts to understand the world from the subjects’ points of view, to unfold the meaning of their experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanation (Kvale, 2009: 1).

Semi-structured interviews were selected to offer ‘more opportunity for dialogue and exchange between the interviewer and interviewee’ (Noaks and Wincup, 2004: 79). However, it became clear from the pilot study that whilst some people can talk comfortably with little structure, others prefer to have a structure to answer to. Therefore the interview schedules were designed to cater for both. Four key questions were asked of

all mentors and mentees: What is peer mentoring? Why are peer mentors volunteers? What

does ‘going straight’ involve? Does peer mentoring have anything to do with going straight? (See appendix A6 and A7). These not only offered a guide for the interview, but also allowed space for any ‘follow up ideas’ (Crowther-Dowey, 2007: 102) that the

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respondents had. Often these four prompts were all that was needed for the hour long interview. Where respondents were giving shorter responses, however, or did not develop points from their own side, a bank of additional prompts was available (see appendix A6 and A7) to encourage the discussion. These were similar for both mentors and mentees, differing only to acknowledge the different positions of mentor and mentee (e.g. what happens if mentees don’t attend/what happens if you don’t attend?) A total of eighteen interviews were completed with mentors from across the projects, and a total of twenty interviews with mentees. In addition the opportunity was taken to interview four project coordinators. These interviews offered an insight into the origins of projects, their aims and the practicalities of service provision. Finally, the opportunity was taken to interview two probation officers who referred in to one of the projects, which gave valuable insight into the perspectives of a partner agency; and in particular into the compromises made over differences in approach.

Whilst the plan was to digitally record all interviews, this was not always possible. Firstly, the prison where six of the thirty eight participants were housed had a policy of ‘no recording equipment’. Therefore it was possible to interview group members about their experiences, but only to record their responses by hand. Secondly, two participants in community settings consented to being interviewed, but not to being recorded. As a result, thirty mentor/mentee interviews were digitally recorded and eight were recorded by hand. Debriefing took place with all participants. This involved summarising the main points discussed and how these might be presented in terms of an argument. It allowed interviewees to correct any factual errors or withdraw statements if they wished. It should be noted that few interviewees did actually disagree with these summaries, although some did re-emphasise the points they considered most important. These included the perceived

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premature termination of mentoring and the appreciation of support from volunteers. Additionally, debriefing allowed for any distress to be identified and any concerns about disclosure and confidentiality to be addressed.