Therapeutic Mentoring Report

Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services of Missouri (PCHAS) plans to continue providing Therapeutic Mentoring services to youth between the ages of four and nineteen in Lincoln County. This program will work with youth identified through school districts (Lincoln County R III) and other social service and healthcare focused agencies (Crider Health Center, Preferred Family Healthcare) in Lincoln County.

The program being implemented is a mentoring program based off of the successful model of Big Brothers Big Sisters. Using this mentoring approach to rehabilitative ends, allows for the successful integration of many different key factors that need to change in order for success. Mentoring has proven to be effective in treating crime and delinquency in multiple crime/offense types. Add to that as well the promising results in regard to drugs and substance abuse, educational improvements, and mental health and behavioral health involved with psychological functioning. In all, this gives credence to a program based on mentoring and using it to treat at-risk youth between the ages of 6 and 18.

While the evidence for mentoring programs suggest that mentoring does appear to have a positive effect on education, training, and employment as well as self-esteem and social skills, mentoring is essentially an unproven strategy (Headley, 2004). Furthermore, the evaluations that have been conducted on the mentoring programs have not demonstrated strong effects for positive outcomes. In fact, some studies have found negative or no effects at all for youth mentoring (Rhodes, 2008). Other studies have shown that positive effects have diminished significantly within a few months of the program ending (Rhodes, 2008). These findings identify the importance of more research in the efficacy and lasting impact of mentoring for youths. Blinn-Pike (2011) compared several studies and found that mentoring improved interpersonal relationships, behavior and reduced violence in the mentees. However, these findings are limited by several variables, including, the small amount of studies, small sample sizes within the studies and that most of the effect sizes were small and medium, with only one effect size that was considered large (.80). Headley (2004) also found that most mentoring programs in Australia and overseas had not been subject to an external evaluation. If the effectiveness and impact of mentoring programs such as the BBBS-AU program, are to be determined more

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (2010), mentoring helps prevent at-risk students from becoming involved in delinquency activities and also helps those who are already delinquent to change their lives for the better. Mentoring relationships have been shown to improve students’ self-esteem, behavior, and academic performance.

Five months ago a group of randoms entered a classroom on the third floor of Schneider at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on a Tuesday at about 11 AM. All of us probably thinking the same thing, “Do we have to mentor right away?”, “Who are these professors?”, “Oh thank god, I know someone in this class.” There were feelings of nervousness, excitement, and confusion swirling about the class but it was not long before the class jelled and became almost like a family. Five months later we are coming to the close of the Mentoring Youth with Differing Abilities course and it has been one wild ride. There were good times, bad times, awkward times, and everything in between, all occurring while we learned and experienced new things.

The mentoring program is used as way to help juvenile offenders change their behavior and maladaptive thought. Attendance of the mentoring program is dependent on the judge that is adjudicating the child, the probation officer handling the case or the guardian of the juvenile offender. Most of the time, the judge or probation officer look at the needs of the child and the distress of the family to determine if the child would benefit from the program. If a child exhibits poor coping skills or poor decision-making skills, a mentor may be useful so that the child can experience being around someone of more positive regard. When a child is having family issues; for instance an

The ultimate goal of the MODEL Program is to reduce the health-risk behavior and achievement gap of youth to develop positive future leaders (Collins, 2002). MODEL does this by incorporating a comprehensive mentoring program, which serves selective youth participants chosen from at-risk middle and high schools that want to be a greater influence in their communities. Some participants will be from a juvenile or other intervention program. The participants’ age varies between twelve to twenty-five years old. The age of eighteen to twenty-five is considered emerging adulthood, the time in between adolescence and adulthood, which in most cases today, is considered as “prolonged adolescence” (Arnett, 2000). For attending students, there will be ongoing advisement and courses, along with summer and winter sessions of real life venture projects. These projects include local community services at family resource centers, recreation centers, churches, clinics/hospitals, and participation in juvenile program focus groups that discuss consequences

Study focused on a conceptual model of the mentoring process, drawing from theory and research on child and adolescent development and close relationships. Youth mentoring is popular and widespread phenomenon that promotes and develops positive experiences with young people. Researchers argue this mentoring process discussed should be guided by solid conceptual models that incorporate relevant theoretical perspectives from the literature on child and adolescent development. Results concluded a conceptual framework that portrays a close mentoring relationships as the catalyst for three interviewed process: enhancement of social and emotional development, improvements in cognitive function thought conversation, joint activity, and guided instruction.

Professional development/"proactive" (not reactive) mentoring has taken a backseat with the reduction in the force and the increase in TDY/Deployments throughout the 2 BW. It's setting a standard of "take care of yourself because no one will". How can I task risks if there is no room to fail? If I fail how severe will the consquences be? It basically tells me I shouldn't task any risks whether they are acceptable or not because I might fail. E-4/E-5's do not know how to lead because the E-6's are limited in their abilities to take care of the people because they are focused on a growing mission with a reduced force. The E-7/E-8's do a fair enough job managing their respective programs but when things go wrong are often quick to push off

I have benefited from this programme as having a committed mentor helps you maintain focus on your goals you need to achieve to register professionally, not only will one develop a professional relationship but younger professionals get valuable

After researching the best practices for services delivery to the at-risk youth in Chicago, I discovered multiple resources. There were so many centers that provided information to the youth to help better them. However, only one of those resource centers was known for their best practices. That center is the Youth Outreach Services (YOS). This center offers the best practices in counseling, prevention, child welfare, and juvenile justice. The mission of YOS is that they believe every individual has the potential to find a positive way through life and have positivity in adulthood. YOS works in partnerships with their clients in order to develop the skills they will use for a lifetime. Their primary goal is to make sure local teenagers have the resources they need to deal with the current issues in Chicago, as well as, preventing them. YOS always provide positivity to the youth and wants to make sure they are proactive. They promote social engagement, help build self-confidence and help individuals manage their negative behaviors.

In order for me to gather a greater understanding of the research based around mentoring young people that already exists, I carried out a literature review. I also conducted a case study of a young person mentored for the last two years of his school life. I collected the data from the young person by using a semi-structured interview, which I then analysed together with the findings from my literature review. A variety of key findings were identified which relate to

The MODEL Program will contribute to advance mentoring programs for youth with the most need that: (1) helps these kids in getting support and direction from a guide; (2) enhances the civic and scholastic participation of the youth; (3) enhances interpersonal connections between the youth and their associates, instructors, adults, and relatives; (4) diminishes the youth dropout rate from schools; (5) decreases adolescent misconduct and participation in gangs; (6) and enhances youth career goals and employment through network of computer science education.

The four-year mentoring program is purposely designed for low socioeconomics students at the Oswego high school in Oswego, NY. The program intends to encourage and help the students graduate high school on time. The aims to hire mentors who can prepare the students with lifelong skills that can help them with jobs or college. Before implementation of the program, approval from the school board is needed. There will be professionals from the education department such as professors and counselors, hiring mentors as well as someone to train the mentors, and a program coordinator to run the program. Students who exhibit poor grades and academic disadvantage, will be selected to participate in the program. Parental/guardian permission will be necessary for child participation in the mentoring program. Mentors and the program coordinator will create a paper document for the parents to sign allowing the students to participate in the program. In the form, there will be a section asking the parents if they would like to be a part of the student activities with their child. In order for the program to be successful, some materials will be needed to keep all the student’s information, records, and

This article examined the long history of student mentoring for at risk kids. They found that there was a seventy percent growth in school-based mentoring programs. Big