Clayton Public School District''s Juvenile Mentoring Program for the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative

The SS/HS Initiative is a joint effort by the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice to support schools and communities in creating safer and healthier learning environments. This solicitation invites current Safe Schools/Healthy Student grantees to develop proposals that will increase the capacity of their SS/HS collaborations to develop and implement community-based mentoring programs or to expand and enhance existing mentoring programs and strategies. This program advances the provision of integrated resources for prevention and early intervention services for children and youth by supporting effective evidence-based mentoring services to young people who are underserved. The intent of this program is to demonstrate new mentoring efforts or to expand existing mentoring efforts that work in concert with a grantee's SS/HS comprehensive plan.

Clayton Public School District, a 2008 Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative grantee, will collaborate with Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBSBCG) to operate the Clayton Mentoring Program for at-risk students in grades 6-9 to address the following targeted issues: juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, school dropout rates, behavioral issues, and low academic performance. To accomplish program goals and objectives, Clayton Public School District will: (1) hire a full-time Mentoring Program Coordinator as liaison between the school, community and BBBSBCG to recruit mentor volunteers, screen applications, facilitate background checks, coordinate and implement on-site group activities, track outcomes, and record program results; and (2) Contract with BBBSBCG to implement their nationally recognized Mentoring Program for (50) supported mentoring matches by hiring a full-time Case Manager to assist in recruiting efforts, screen/interview and train mentors, conduct youth and home assessments, and provide ongoing supervision and monitoring of the match relationship. All SS/HS partners agree to support the community based mentoring program through promotion and encouragement of inter-agency and community based mentor volunteers. Progress toward program goals and objectives will be measured using the BBBSBCG Youth Outcome Survey (YOS) and Strength of Relationship Survey (SOR), as well as data from the District's student database, PowerSchool.

CA/NCF