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Mentoring Programs Ready As School Bells Ring Again

August 18, 2009: As children begin a new school year across America, mentoring programs are gearing up to find qualified mentors for students who want and need a caring adult in their lives.

That is how Andrew DeJesus met his mentor Bill Calder in Plainville, Connecticut, 10 years ago. He was a shy third-grader whose tutoring from Bill in school became a mentoring relationship that culminated in Andrew's high school graduation and scholarship to college. "He always comes through for me," Andrew commented about Bill. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. I wouldn't be going to college."

Approximately 30 percent of mentoring programs reside in elementary, middle and high schools. Mentor/mentee pairs meet either during school hours or immediately after, and they often have a designated meeting place within the building. Their activities can include tutoring, working on homework and playing sports and games. Typically, this type of mentoring asks the mentor for a commitment of at least one school year.

Another new and promising school-based mentoring effort is happening in Pittsburgh. The Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania is one of several partners for United Way's Be A 6th Grade Mentor project, which was designed to help youth become aware of jobs in the area, have a career dream that provides motivation, and understand the relevance of completing school and being able to read, write and do math adequately to achieve a career and lifelong success. Colleen Fedor, executive director of the Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania, reported that 625 mentors have been recruited already and said, "This year, with the Be A 6th Grade Mentor project, Pittsburghers have truly stepped up and answered the call to a level that we have never seen before."

The latest research available on school-based mentoring shows that this form of mentoring has potential if done in a quality way – with mentor training, staff support and maintenance efforts, such as summer contact between mentors and mentees – and if it is adapted to suit various ages, as well as the specific needs of boys and girls.

For more information and resources on school-based mentoring, read MENTOR's sixth installment of its Research In Action series at www.mentoring.org/downloads/mentoring_387.pdf. To read additional success stories about school-based mentoring pairs, go to http://www.mentoring.org/mentors/school_based_mentoring/.

 

Mentoring Reaches Native Americans Through Caregiver's Choice Program

June 2, 2009: MENTOR is working with Native American populations to make mentoring more accessible to young people in those communities.

One of the first steps is reaching out to Native American populations so they can feel empowered to use the Mentoring Children of Prisoners: Caregiver's Choice program, which grants $1,000 stipends to qualified mentoring programs serving children with a parent in jail. Mentoring Children of Prisoners: Caregiver's Choice is a three year demonstration project funded by the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report American Indians and Crime (1999), on a per capita basis, American Indians had a rate of prison incarceration about 38 percent higher than the national rate. In 1997, about 16,000 American Indians were held in local jails — a rate of 1,083 per 100,000 adults, the highest of any racial group.

"We know that the need for mentoring is great across the board and is especially critical in minority populations," said Harry Wilson, a senior advisor to MENTOR. "As much as we want to help, we must understand and honor cultural differences. In Native American communities, for example, there are natural mentors present in daily life — traditions that are passed from the elders to the younger generations. We must be sensitive to cultural mores so that adults and children can begin to feel comfortable with mentoring and its positive effects."

As part of its outreach efforts, MENTOR is consulting with Native American representatives from the National Indian Child Welfare Association, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Their input will help guide MENTOR in promoting Caregiver's Choice and in bringing more mentoring opportunities to Native American communities in general. MENTOR also will have a presence at the United Native Indian Tribal Youth annual conference this summer.

Special focus is being given to states with large Native American communities, including Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington.

For more information, visit www.mentoring.org and http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/aic.pdf.

*This is a "Mentoring Children of Prisoners Voucher Demonstration, funded by the Family Youth Services Bureau under grant #90CV0457."