Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2009, $500,000)
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.
Through Operation Mentor, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee will unite with community partners to provide underserved minority youth with one-to-one mentors in an area of high disadvantage in Nashville, TN. The uniqueness of the project lies in two elements: (1) its tight geographic focus on a high-need area, to concentrate services for maximal impact over time; and (2) its focus on community mobilization and organization, building a program of the community, not just in the community. The program will enroll youth between the ages of 6 and 16 who attend the elementary, middle, and high schools in the low-performing Maplewood and Stratford high school clusters. We will hire a Community Mobilizer and an Enrollment Specialist to accelerate community commitment and volunteer engagement and a Match Support Specialist to support matches. Among youth served, we will focus on improving scholastic confidence, academic performance, school attendance, and educational expectations, to ultimately increase academic success and graduation rates. Short-term progress will be measured by the number of children and mentors matched, community partnerships built, jobs created/preserved, and mentoring services enhanced/created. Intermediate progress for youth will be measured by the pre-post Big Brothers Big Sisters Youth Outcomes Survey and school attendance records.
This award will create three jobs; thus the project achieves the Recovery Act objective of promoting economic recovery by preserving or creating jobs. CA/NCF