A life guardian is a mentor in the traditional sense but also someone who helps to provide the foundation for a person’s emotional well-being, someone who the young person can trust and who works with them to work through a situation. It means being present to provide emotional support, practical advice whilst also engaging in co-production and empowerment rather than delivering instructions and commands.

The life guardian offers unconditional positive regard and works through the transferences and counter transferences by dissolving the defence mechanisms which the young person has developed. In this way the life guardian recognises they are going to be tested to see if they are genuine. To be able to work through these challenges requires having good external supervision to ensure that the support provide to the young person is unconditional.