Sacramento County School-Based Mentoring Program

This grant program is authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5) (the 'Recovery Act'). Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention made awards to support local organizations that develop, implement, or expand local mentoring programs leading to measurable, positive outcomes for at-risk youth. This program furthers the Department's mission by enhancing the capacity of local mentoring programs to develop and implement mentoring strategies to reduce juvenile delinquency and prevent violence.

The Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), in collaboration with community and school partners, will expand school-based mentoring services for at-risk youth, ages 12 to 17. The purposes of the proposed project are to improve school attendance, student academic performance and behavior/discipline by providing long-term mentoring relationships. The program will serve 30 middle school and 60 high school students. Through the Friday Night Live (FNL) Mentoring model, middle school protégés will be matched with high school student mentors. Through the LINKS Mentoring model, high school protégés will be matched with adult volunteer mentors. Both models meet the California Quality Standards for mentoring programs and have demonstrated effectiveness in improving student outcomes. Both models utilize structured weekly one-to-one mentoring sessions, conducted throughout the school year. The role of the high school and adult mentors is to act as friend, personal coach and positive role model. Mentoring session topics include planning, organizing and goal setting, social/interpersonal skills, resisting peer pressure, succeeding at school and work, career/higher education exploration, character and meeting commitments. Progress will be measured by the extent to which protégés improve their academic grades, improve school attendance and reduce school expulsions, suspensions, and discipline referrals.
CA/NCF