Mentor The Young

[Georgeanna Abson]

Onestudy estimates that the human potential lost as a result of the educational achievement gap is the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession. By preparing young people for college and careers, mentoring helps develop the future workplace talent pipeline. (Mentoring: At the crossroads of education, business and community, 2015)

The number of ways mentoring can help a young person are as varied as the people involved in each program. While the lists and statistics can be impressive, personal stories can be even more impressive. Take a look at some mentoring success stories to see the impact of mentoring in real life.

54% of young people who wished they had a mentor at a key time were dealing with a serious issue or major challenge (including family issues, mental health challenges, substance abuse, or physical or sexual abuse).

Fortunately, I recognized the favor she was doing for me and I ended up developing a very close relationship with the CEO, Christopher Cole. Mr. Cole was the first major accelerator in my career, quickly introducing me to the world of entrepreneurship, writing, and executive management. His impact on the trajectory of my life cannot be overstated, and I continue to owe him a great debt of gratitude to this day.

Too many young professionals fail to realize that mentorship is a two-way street. You have to deliver tremendous value to your mentor as well, and that often means working longer and harder than those around you.

This lesson came into play with the second major accelerator and mentor in my life, my cofounder at BodeTree, Matt Ankrum. Matt hired me to work on his strategy team at Apollo Group after an extensive search process. I really wanted the job, and committed to outworking everyone in order to get it. I went out of my way to develop a strong strategy proposal for the team, going so far as to have it professionally designed and printed. While this may seem like a trivial thing, it helped me to stand out among other, better qualified candidates. It also proved to Matt that I was dedicated to delivering exceptional value to him and the rest of the team.

This attitude continued after I was hired, and I made a point to work harder and longer than anyone in order to make the team more successful. Towards the end of our tenure at Apollo, Matt managed to coax the initial concept for BodeTree out of me. Much to my surprise, he not only was supportive of the idea; he wanted to be part of it. He took a huge risk on his young employee because he believed in the vision and passion that I brought to the table. Had I failed to work hard for him and prove my dedication, BodeTree would never have been born. Nearly everything that has led me to this point in my life is a direct result of working to provide tremendous value to my mentors.

The NAAF Youth Mentor Program connects children living with alopecia areata to dedicated young adult mentors. The goal is to formulate lasting bonds while providing support and guidance on dealing with the day-to-day challenges stemming from alopecia areata.

Youth mentors are people between the ages of 17-30 who live with alopecia areata. They want to share their experience and support others. Many of our mentors have been part of the NAAF community for years. They attend the NAAF Patient Conference, NAAF support groups, or other NAAF community activities. Others are new to NAAF and are now part of an ever-expanding network of young adults who want to give back by sharing what they have learned has helped them to cope.

During the three-day event, composer participants have their works rehearsed, performed, and recorded with the conductor participants conducting. All rehearsals and the performance are attended and supervised by all composer and conductor mentors. Many alums of this joint Project have gone on to have highly successful careers as conductors, composers, and educators at the high school and college-university level, and with professional military bands. Previous Mentor Projects have been hosted by The Texas Bandmasters Association in San Antonio, Illinois State University, Arizona State University, the United States Marine Band, and the United States Air Force Band.

The Leeds Young Alumni Mentors Program connects sophomore students to recently graduated Leeds alumni. Students and mentors work through a series of milestones including self-assessments, curricular choices, career exploration, and professional skills development. Young Alumni Mentors prepare students to enter their junior year with a clear vision of their academic and professional direction, and provide the tools to hit the ground running!

Young Alumni Mentors are recent Leeds graduates that have between one and five years of work experience. Mentors represent all functional areas of business, as well as a diverse group of industries. Mentors serve as role models, coaches, and advisors to our students, providing an additional layer of academic counseling, professional preparation, and industry insight.

The YAMs program serves the Leeds sophomore student population. Sophomore students face unique challenges, such as declaring their business emphasis while also beginning to think about making the transition from business curriculum to business career. The intention of the program is to enhance sophomores' engagmenet with Leeds and preparation for the next two years by providing them with important personal support and individual connections as they lay the groundwork for their futures.

Each sophomore students will be assigned a young alumni mentor based on their business interests and personal qualities. Each mentee will have a "primary" mentor to meet with on a monthly basis, and access the entire YAM mentor population for additional career/industry exploration. The mentoring model is designed to be student centered, student-directed, and loosely structured; allowing mentors and students to build multiple relationships and easily blend their schedules with the requirements of the program. Mentees are assigned monthly milestones to complete with their mentor and within the program stucture, including: resume critiques, off-site company visits, networking and professional etiquette workshops, career and personality self-assessments, industry panels and others.

This dynamic feature shows OJJDP's investment in mentoring by highlighting grantees and sub-grantees across the nation. Access the OJJDP Mentoring Grantee Geomap

Blog post: Read about the National Mentoring Resource Center's geomap.

OJJDP has long supported mentoring programs. In fiscal year (FY) 2023, OJJDP awarded nearly $92.5 million to increase mentoring opportunities for youth and improve the quality of mentoring they receive.

Through its research, programmatic grants, training and technical assistance, and publications, OJJDP provides national leadership to support the delivery of high quality mentoring to a diverse and growing population of youth. The OJJDP National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) has been developed as a key research and practice resource for the mentoring field.

"What You Need to Know about Background Screening: A Reference Guide for Youth-Serving Organizations and their Communities" is for leaders within a youth-serving organization (YSO), community members who volunteer within YSOs, and parents of children who participate in YSOs describes six layers of security screening an agency should consider when developing a comprehensive background-screening process.

National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC)

The goal of the OJJDP-funded NMRC, created in partnership with the National Mentoring Partnership (MENTOR), is to improve the quality and effectiveness of youth mentoring across the country through increased use of evidence-based practices and sharing practitioner innovations. In FY 2022, NMRC provided 17,000 hours of technical support in response to more than 759 requests from mentoring organizations.

OJJDP's Model Programs Guide (MPG)

OJJDP's MPG contains information about evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. It is a resource for practitioners and communities about what works, what is promising, and what does not work in juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, and child protection and safety.

CrimeSolutions.ojp.gov: Mentoring Practice Profile

This resource provides findings from rigorous evaluation research syntheses in mentoring. Mentoring, as a general practice, has demonstrated positive impacts across a variety of delinquency, education, mental health, and substance misuse outcomes.

Mentoring Research Partners Program

This program supported researchers who sought to partner with OJJDP-funded mentoring organizations to conduct program-specific data collection and evaluation and improve mentoring organizations' ability to collect and analyze program-specific data and measures about the delivery and impact of their mentoring services.

High-Risk Youth Mentoring Research

The High-Risk Youth Mentoring Research program supported research and evaluations to further examine how certain characteristics, components, and practices of mentoring programs could best support youth who are at particularly high risk for delinquency.

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