SFoY Enhanced Mentoring for Substance Abuse Affected Youth

Surry Friends of Youth (SFoY) seeks to implement a mentoring program entitled SFoY Enhanced Mentoring for Substance Abuse-affected Youth (SEMSAY). This program will provide the extremely high-risk youth with intensive mentoring at three hours per week contact time. Parents of these extremely high-risk youth may be given weekly in-home parent aide support to improve their parenting abilities and help steer them toward sobriety via referrals, education, and transportation assistance. Lower risk youth will be provided with enhanced mentors at one hour per week contact. All youth mentees will be given access to prevention education and substance abuse treatment. The program will be overseen by a Program Manager/Grant Administrator, who will ensure compliance with the Elements of Effective Practice designed to make the mentoring process successful and sustainable. In addition, SFoY seeks to hire three Intensive Mentors, two Parent Aides, one Volunteer Coordinator, and one Facilitator of Prevention and Treatment. The remainder of the mentors and parent aides will be volunteers. All paid staff and volunteers will be trained specifically in substance abuse-relevant topics, including risk of abuse/neglect, mandatory reporting, impact on development, and trauma-informed care. SFoY estimates that 78 substance abuse-impacted youth will be served by SEMSAY at the end of the three-year funding period.