IMAGINE Success Program (Indianapolis Mentoring, Achieving Girls Interests, Needs and Expectations for Success)

The 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 mission of the YWCA Indianapolis is eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. The strategic thrust of the YWCA is to develop programs and resources to support and serve young girls in order for them to be successful personally, academically and professionally. All youth need positive role models, pro-social activity engagement, and exposure to vocational/career opportunities, yet many youth, and particularly young girls in low income communities, are often lacking all of these environmental factors. The IMAGINE Success program (Indianapolis Mentoring, Achieving Girls Interests, Needs and Expectations for Success) will embed a mentoring and career awareness program into an Indianapolis Public School's middle school that targets at-risk girls. IMAGINE Success integrates key mentoring and best practice principles that: 1) targets criminogenic risk factors; 2) occurs in conjunction with evidence-based programs; 3) continues through the academic year with special programming through the summer; 4) includes group and one-on-one mentoring model design; 5) provides extensive screening, training and support of mentors; and 6) develops and delivers training manuals and resources. In addition to the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) system, other key partners include: Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), Password Community Mentoring and the Marion County Juvenile Court System. IUPUI will conduct the evaluation. IMAGINE Success will target 25 at-risk girls as part of a year-long pilot mentoring and career exploration program within an IPS middle school. Some of the major expected outcomes are: 1) increases in attendance, 2) improved academic achievement, 3) increased vocational/career aspirations, and 4) reductions in at-risk behaviors. The goal is to create a replicable model for the Indianapolis Public Schools System and other school systems throughout the state. NCA/NCF