National PAL Mentoring Program

The National Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues, Inc. (NPAL), in partnership with 100 of its affiliate sites (Chapters), seeks to continue implementation of its successful NPAL Mentoring Program to serve at-risk youth aged 8-17 throughout the country. The goal is to reduce the severity of risk factors, such as victimization, opioid abuse, delinquency, and bullying. In line with the overall mission of NPAL, the program will seek to improve relations between youth and law enforcement, while also increasing self-esteem and commitment to school and community for at-risk youth. The program will help youth understand the negative impacts of delinquent behavior, school truancy, opioid abuse, and bullying. This will be achieved through weekly or bi-weekly small-group mentoring sessions utilizing a 7:1 mentee/mentor ratio and nationally recognized curricula focused on areas such as entrepreneurship, college and career readiness, social and emotional learning, critical thinking and decision making, teamwork, perseverance, and leadership. The NPAL program will target marginalized populations such as American Indian/Alaskan Native youth, children of incarcerated parents, children from military families, youth affected by opioid abuse, and rural youth. NPAL will provide tailored trainings to ensure that organizations are able to best serve these groups, including adaptations to best serve Native youth, youth impacted by opioids, and youth affected by bullying or cyber-bullying. Youth will gain a better understanding of the long-term impacts of bullying and will be less likely to stay silent as a victim or to engage in bullying against their peers. Other forms of violent and non-violent victimization will also be addressed. To achieve the project goal, NPAL will: 1) make subawards to 100 local PAL Chapters to serve 5,000 youth; 2) improve mentoring programs through trainings and technical assistance; 3) provide a diverse array of curricula; and 4) track required performance measures through an online system. A Community Service Project will be a required component of all subawards. This youth-led project will reinforce the lessons of each curriculum and allow youth to give back to their communities. NPAL will host a National Peer Mentoring Summit to connect and inspire teen mentors through structured trainings and networking opportunities. Performance measures based on OJJDP's FY 2021 Performance Measurements and NPAL internal outcomes measurements will be gathered via an existing online system. Data collection will not constitute research for generalizable knowledge.