Mentoring Program Examples

Entrepreneurship Education Programs are run in various cities across the country. Many dropouts and at-risk students complain that they do not see a connection between schooling and job skills. EEP seek to remedy this problem by involving local business people in high schools to help students discover how their education will impact their future. These programs involves students in specific projects so they can make a concrete connection between the skills they are learning in school and those needed to be successful in the global economy. More information can be found here.

Families and Schools Together (F.A.S.T.) operates in Wisconsin schools and targets the families of potential drop-outs. It provides 8-week sessions hosted by educators and community volunteers who attempt to build bonds of trust between the families, community and schools and create supportive networks children can use as their education progresses. The program also has components to address substance-abuse problems. For more information click here.

Good Shepherd Services in New York, New York is a non-sectarian program that has involved the community with at-risk youth for almost 150 years. Community members provide tutoring and mentor relationships for students in local high schools. The program also provides job-training and support services for family members of at-risk students who are often, themselves, at need for community support. More information can be found here.

Skills to Empower People Socially (S.T.E.P.S.) is an anti-truancy program operating in Irving, Texas that involves the community in the lives of at-risk youth. The program matches students up with adult mentors and helps improve study-skills. A report from the National Dropout Prevention Center, “Truancy Prevention in Action: Planning, Collaboration and Implementation Strategies for Truancy Programs”, is also available that describes how community groups can start similar anti-truancy programs (Cloud and Duttweiler 2006). For more information on S.T.E.P.S. click here or the NDPC report click here.

Project Respect is an effort of Pueblo School District #60 designed to involve the community in the lives of at risk youth and their families. Community advocates are assigned to participants to help the families get involved in their children’s education. Tutoring is available for students who and mental health professionals can assist families in need. More information is available here.

Tutor/Mentor Connection is based in Chicago. The organization’s leaders have operated a site based program connecting inner city youth with workplace volunteers for more than 30 years. In 1993 they created the Cabrini Connections program click here which serves 7th to 12th grade teens. Volunteers and youth meet at a community based location and while each youth works with a primary one-on-one mentor, they also work with a variety of other volunteers in arts, technology, video and college and career mentoring activities. In 1993 the organization recognized that no one in Chicago was maintaining a master database of non-school tutoring and/or mentoring programs, or leading a consistent marketing effort intended to help each program get the volunteers and dollars they require to constantly improve. Thus, they created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to fill this void. At the T/MC web site the organization now maintains a web based library of information about tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, as well as programs in other cities. The library also contains information about fund raising, education reform and poverty issues, and links to many home work help and learning resources. This is an interactive site where others can visit and add links, or rate existing links, or join on-line discussions.

One unique feature of the T/MC web site is a Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator database listing more than 170 organizations in Chicago that offer various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring during non-school hours. This information is shown as overlays on maps of Chicago. Layers include demographics showing high poverty, as well as locations of poorly performing schools. Layers also include assets such as banks, faith groups, colleges and hospitals. Map users can zoom into specific areas of the city and use this to locate existing programs, or build collaborations that create new programs. View the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net

In the Tutor/Mentor Institute section of the T/MC site, the organization provide short essays that illustrate its vision of steps that would support the growth of comprehensive tutor/mentor programs in every poverty neighborhood. In the Program Locator section of the site are maps and the Chicago database. The maps show where programs are most needed, based on high poverty or locations of poorly performing schools. The database enables a parent, social worker, volunteer or donor to search by zip code, age group and type of program to find contact information for programs in specific locations.

The T/MC also hosts a Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every May and November. If you’d like to present a workshop at the conference, sharing your tutor/mentor strategies, or your expertise at managing a tutor/mentor program, please visit http://www.tutormentorconference.org to learn more about the conference and submit a workshop application.

See Also

Mentorship Program Design

Tutor/Mentor Institute

References

Bickel, W. E.; Bond, L.; and LeMahieu, P. Students at Risk of Not Completing High School. A Background Report to the Pittsburgh Foundation. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Foundation, August 1986.

Dryfoos, J. G. Adolescents at Risk: Prevalence and Prevention. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Orr, M. T. What to Do About Youth Dropouts? A Summary of Solutions. New York: Structured Employment/Economic Development Corporation, July 1987

Pew Partnership for Civic Change. “Mentoring Programs.” Solutions for American. Report available here.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. The Condition of Education, 1993. Washington, DC: USDOE, 1993.