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This inspiring new documentary follows the fortunes of five very different mentoring and befriending relationships, each of which has changed the lives of those taking part for the better.
There are over 5000 mentoring and befriending schemes in Britain, set up to help all kinds of people. Find out how you can get involved in these schemes at Mentoring and Befriending Foundation.
In Friends in Deed, we meet a woman being helped to overcome agoraphobia. We look at a peer mentoring scheme for schoolchildren, as well as a business mentoring relationship.
 Victoria overcoming her fears
Margaret and Victoria
The programme introduces us to 70-year-old Margaret, who has found being a mentor a life-changing experience. Helping Victoria from Uxbridge to overcome severe agoraphobia, which caused her to become a prisoner in her own home in Hillingdon for nine years, has helped Margaret come to terms with her husband's death.
The film ends with Margaret helping Victoria to overcome her last hurdle by taking her on a picnic to her favourite spot - the local reservoir - which she hasn't visited for 20 years.
 Sam benefits from a good listener
16-year-old troublemaker Sam from Newcastle drinks alcohol and smokes dope regularly, and is well known to the Newcastle Youth Offending Team. He's now been given the chance for a different future by being offered a mentor by The Odysseus Mentoring Project. They matched him up with Ron, 38, who meets Sam once a week for an informal, confidential chat about what's going on in Sam's life.
By the end of their mentoring relationship Sam finds that he has calmed down a lot; he no longer feels under pressure from friends to drink and smoke dope and he's looking forward to starting college. "If every kid and every adult volunteered to do mentoring, every kid would change like I have", says Sam.
Peer and Business Mentoring
In Wirral, peer mentoring is transforming the atmosphere of Plessington Catholic Technology College and the lives of its pupils, such as headgirl Catherine Millan who was facing expulsion until she became involved in the scheme. Mentoring has changed her outlook on life so much that she now has ambitions to become the first black female prime minister in Britain.
 As well as helping to develop ambitions, mentoring can also assist people when they are trying to establish themselves in the business world. Matthew, a young artist from Hackney, London, is hoping to make it big in the art world with the help of Philip, a business mentor who works for Deloittes.
Impact on Mentors
The show also highlights how mentoring and befriending relationships can effect the life of the mentor as well as the person being mentored. In Coventry, Dave is training to be a befriender working with the city's refugee and immigrant community. Befriending Lizzie, a Liberian refugee who has endured extreme hardship and grief in her home country, has forced him to confront his long-held views on asylum-seekers.
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