Mentoring Programs for At-Risk Youth

The word instruct derives its origin from a character in Homers heroic poem poem The Odyssey. When Odysseus, King of Ithaca, went to fight in the Trojan War, he entrusted the vex of his Kingdom to Mentor. Mentor served as the teacher and overseer of Odysseuss son, Telemachus.1In our conjunction today, mentors gener whollyy atomic number 18 volunteers who are committed to helping students or younkerfulness identified as at-risk and/or as a potential dropout go through back on track pedantically, socially, mentally and physically.The specific roles of mentors are motley and varied. Mentors are big brothers/sisters, role models, friends and confidantes. Their goal is to make a federation and then, using that connection, convey a positive message to their mentee. Mentors build self-esteem, activate and help young persons set goals and work toward accomplishing those goals.There is little distrust of the importance of mentoring programs and the benefits they yield. Studies of existing programs indicate that youth who discontinueicipate in mentoring relationships rescue better attendance and attitude toward schooling less do drugs and alcoholic drink use improved social attitudes and relationships more trusting relationships and better colloquy with their parents and a better chance of going on to higher education.2Unfortunately, all those who could be benefiting from having a mentor are not. According to Mentoring in the shows 2005 A Snapshot of the Current State of Mentoring, Of the 17.6 million young nation who could especially benefit from having a mentor, only 2.5 million were in formal, one-on-one mentoring relationships. 3In the state of computerized tomography, over 160,000 childrenor 25 % of computerized tomographys youthare in life situations that place them at risk for personal and academic failure.4These situations accept poverty, inadequate early childishness experiences and preparation for school, family drug use, violence, troth in the criminal justice form and lack of access to needed social and mental health services.Government, club and civic groups and individuals are trying to change that trying to make a difference. Since 1989, The Governors prevention coalition has worked with the State of Connecticut, Connecticuts corporate and crinkle communities and other public, private and society organizations to impart the leadershiphip and resources to assist 387 schools, 249 companionship organizations and 93 businesses in efforts to keep the children of the state safe, successful and drug-free.5This is be accomplished, in part, through the following programs.The Connecticut Mentoring PartnershipCreated in 1977, The Connecticut Mentoring Partnership (CMP) challenges business leaders to help create a statewide mentoring orifice as a prevention strategy to protect youth from drug use, school failure and other related problems.The program provides leadership, resources and learning to schools, busi nesses, friendship and faith-based organizations throughout the state in an effort to increase mentoring leagues and get along safe, musical note mentoring programs.The Partnership similarly kit and caboodle toRaise public awareness CMP has partnerships with NBC30, CBS wireless, Buckley Radio and others, a statewide media campaign recruits mentors during National Mentoring Month in January. facelift awareness of the importance of mentoring is likewise done year-round. A toll-free number, 1-877-CT-MENTOR, provides schooling on mentoring and ties into a statewide database of mentoring programs.Recruit and refer mentors argument and community groups are assisted in recruiting their workforce or members to serve as mentors.Develop saucy mentoring resources, including public and private funding support and promote public policies and legislation that strengthen mentoring and collect and track data.Activities and services of the CMP take The Mentoring Training Institute tech nical assistance and book on Connecticut Quality Standards for mentoring programs and assistance on program design resources and mentor recruitment, screening, training and program design Regional Mentoring Networks for program providers mentor recruitment and a toll-free Mentor Referral Line annual mentoring showcase conference and workshops The Mentoring incorporated follow Roll and Corporate Mentoring Round Table that promotes, supports and recognizes corporate involvement and program evaluation tools and resources.Since 1997, CMP has created over 200 new programs and more than 3,000 new mentoring relationships. Since 2001, 70 schools and businesses have joined the Partnerships School Business Mentoring Alliance and 90 companies have been recognized through the 2005 Mentoring Corporate Honor Roll.6The Urban Mentoring InitiativeThe Urban Mentoring Imitative (UMI) was created in 2005 in partnership with the state of Connecticut. oer the next two years2006-2007the CMP entrust b ulge a mentoring expansion effort in Hartford, Waterbury, Norwich, Bridgeport, New Haven, New Britain and Windham.During that time, The UMI exit be responsible for attempting to significantly increase the number of mentors for at-risk children in those communities. This will be done by increasing the capacity of existing mentoring programs to tinge more children developing new mentoring programs and models to address existing gaps and identifying and accessing additional resources.The biyearly funding appropriated by the State legislature will be matched by corporate and private sector monies secured by The Governors Prevention Partnership.Project Choice Mentoring syllabusProject Choice Mentoring Program (PCMP) is sanctified to helping the youth of the City of Hartford. Its mission is to empower committed overdue youth to make positive life choices that will enable them to maximize their personal potential and be successful in their community.The program provides feel for men tors who are fully trained and supported by the professional module of Project Choice and Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters, according to Eddie Perez, mayor of Hartford, CT. Project Choice mentors strive to be a positive support system to the youth as well as to the family by forming a relationship based on trust and respect. This allows Project Choice mentors to advocate for the youth in academic, community and family settings while opening doors of opportunity that other would not be available to them.7Project Choice started as an idea of David Norman in August 2001 at the Connecticut teenaged Training School (CJTS). Norman took on the challenge of becoming a positive role model for one in need youth. Over time, the youngster responded to Normans efforts with improved behavior, causing others to notice the change. As a result, the idea of role model became more widely original and the term was gradually changed to mentor. This acceptance allowed Norman and others to work with m ore youth at the CJTS facility and Project Choice was born.Project Choice works with Connecticuts Juvenile Justice and at-risk youth between the ages of 11 and 21. The program operates on a buy-in premise. It is completely youth-driven, ensuring that the youth have the survival to buy-in (or participate). No participant is forced, mandated or court ordered to be part of the mentoring process.In 2003, Project Choice partnered with Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters (NBBBS). Today, PCMP also is partnered with Boys Girls Clubs of America and together with NBBBS, work under the umbrella of Connecticuts Department of Children and Families, Bureau of Adolescent and Transitional Services. Project Choice also is networked with the One-on-One Mentoring Program.Project Choice again expanded its resources by establishing a formal collaboration with Project Connect. Project Connect specializes in presenting alternating(a) choices to youth and reinforcing the belief that positive behavior yields positive rewards.Youth uncontaminating Chance, Inc.This national project is funded by the Department of Labor. Established on a case-management basis, this Connecticut program targets individuals between the ages of 14 and 25.Focus is on computer, chisel and life skills training tutoring, which is conducted four times a week and sluttish mentoring. There are no specific project guidelines for the mentoring program, which currently operates on an as-needed basis. Set up within a peer-to-peer mentor atmosphere, Yale University students occasionally provide assistance.Other services offered by Youth Fair Chance include day care, summer employment assistance, support groups, high school lambskin equivalency classes and recreational activities. Four youth program areas are presently being developed that will focus on gender-specific prevention programs for female youth.During the 2005-2006 academic school year a follow-up evaluation of the school-based mentoring program was conducted by the Connecticut Mentoring Partnership. One hundred and ninety mentored youth from seven school systems were evaluated.8The evaluation was viewed as a pilot or exploratory ingest that would serve as a stepping stone for future evaluations and mentoring research. Overall, the results were positive. The states mentoring programs seem to be reaching those individuals who are somewhat academically at-risk and are subsequently able to sustain or improve their academic motion during the course of a mentoring relationship. Footnotes1Reh, F. John. Mentors and Mentoring What Is a Mentor? Retrieved December 1, 2006, from http//management.about.com/cs/ deal/a/mentoring.htm.2Mentoring in America 2005 A Snapshot of the Current State of Mentoring. Results of a poll on mentoring commissioned by MENTOR. Retrieved December 1, 2006, from http//www.mentoring.org/leaders/partnerships/index.php?s=CT.3http//www.mentoring.org/leaders/partnerships/index.php?s=CT.4The Governors Partnership Program Conn ecticut Mentoring Program. Retrieved on December 1, 2006, from http//www.preventionworksct.org/mentor.html.5http//www.preventionworksct.org/mentor.html.6http//www.preventionworksct.org/mentor.html.7Project Choice Mentoring Program. Received from http//www.projectchoicementor.org/index.htm.8Connecticut Mentoring Partnership 2005-2006 evaluation Results Executive Summary. Received December 1, 2006, from http//www.preventionworksct.org.