With January 2012 marking its 11th year, National Mentoring Month is the time each year when our nation officially shines a spotlight on the importance of mentors and the need for every child to have a caring adult in his or her life. Mentoring is a proven method for ensuring that students complete their educations. Youth who have a mentor are more likely to attend, engage in, and finish high school, and to continue on to college. It’s a “win-win” situation both for the youth who reach these milestones and for our country, as these improved educational outcomes lead to reduced juvenile delinquency (United We Serve—Mentoring: An Investment Worth Making, Corporation for National and Community Service).
The goals of National Mentoring Month include the following:
- Raise awareness of mentoring in its various forms.
- Recruit individuals to mentor youth, especially in programs that have waiting lists of young people.
- Promote the rapid growth of mentoring by recruiting organizations to engage their constituents in mentoring.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has provided more than $500 million since 1994 to support juvenile and youth mentoring programs. OJJDP’s efforts focus on strengthening, expanding, and implementing youth mentoring activities and youth development programs throughout the country through grants to national and local organizations. Many of the initiatives focus on reaching at-risk youth and working with underserved populations including foster children, tribal communities, and juvenile offenders who are reentering their communities (Mentoring, Office of Justice Programs).
To learn more about mentoring, please visit NCJRS’s Mentoring Resources Special Feature. This resource contains links to publications and related organizations, agencies, funding resources, and Web sites that focus on mentoring activities.
Source: NCJRS (www.ncjrs.gov)
Posted by Tom R.
NSUBA Library 