New Jersey Mentoring Initiative

he OJJDP FY 10 Earmarks Program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, to organizations identified in the Conference Report to accompany the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117), H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 111-366 at 702-714.

The primary goal of the Big Brother Big Sisters Foundation of New Jersey's (BBBSNJ) Mentoring Initiative is to reduce the likelihood of juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, truancy, school failure, and behavioral issues among the at-risk youth served. BBBSNJ has the following goals for the New Jersey Mentoring Initiative: school-based and community-based mentoring programs will be expanded to include additional at-risk youth throughout New Jersey; provide professional case management to support all mentoring matches; increase volunteer recruitment and retention efforts statewide and locally to reach more mentoring and to retain existing mentors; provide training to strengthen and improve the impact of local mentoring programs; and help the nine local agencies grow their programs by providing direct support for local efforts. This support, though used differently by each agency based on their needs, will help strengthen the capacity to deliver high quality programs for more youth. This earmark will allow the program to create approximately 320 matches that would have not have been made because of state cuts. The New Jersey Mentoring Initiative will also support on-going training efforts for the staff and volunteers at each of the other nine initiatives. This initiative will support a statewide effort to recruit more volunteer mentors. Big Brothers Big Sisters evaluates its impact by using the Program-Based Outcome Evaluation (POE), a tool developed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Under the POE approach, children need to acquire a number of assets in order to make a healthy and productive transition from pre-adolescence to adolescence and finally, into young adulthood. Twenty-one measurable assets are divided into three categories: confidence, competence and caring. Assets used to measure confidence include decision making skills, emotional expression, and good personal hygiene. Some assets used to measure competence are positive attitude in school and the ability to avoid substance abuse or early parenting. Caring can be measured through positive relationships with family, peers and other adults. NCA/NCF