More Mentoring! Project - A Capacity Building Project and Mentoring Pilot Program for Juvenile Offenders and Their Siblings

Committed Partners for Youth (CPY) mentoring agency in Lane County, Oregon, proposes the More Mentoring! initiative to address the needs of at-risk youth in Lane County by creating a merged, comprehensive mentoring organization. This proposed More Mentoring! capacity building initiative will marry the strengths of the CPY and Big Brothers/Big Sisters (BBBS) mentoring models; namely, CPY's experience working with the highest needs adolescent youth, and BBBS' experience working with younger, elementary/early middle school age youth who are lower risk and yet to engage in anti-social behavior. All at-risk youth in Lane County, OR will benefit from the scope of the More Mentoring! capacity building project. All of the youth involved with CPY and BBBS reside in Lane County, with the majority living in the Eugene-Springfield community.

Youth in this service area (ages 6-17) are currently identified as 'at-risk' from school counselors, CPY, and BBBS assessments of the children's poverty level, family functioning, school achievement, peer relationships, and/or degree of anti-social behavior. Most of CPY youth are failing in school and/or have a parent who is incarcerated. A small number of CPY youth (4 per year) are in residential treatment facilities. Children in the BBBS programs are traditionally less at-risk but are still in need of extra adult support due to challenges in their family or school. The target population for the pilot program associated with More Mentoring! will be juvenile offenders on probation and their siblings, ages 6-17. Once formed, the merged organization will test the effectiveness of its new program strategies by focusing on the underserved population of juvenile offenders and their siblings, which will test the strengths of the model on a broad age group, as well as on high risk and lower risk youth. The merged mentoring organization (CPY/BBBS), and community partners are positioned well to work together to develop, implement, and evaluate the More Mentoring! pilot program so that other localities can replicate this work. CA/NCF