Waterford Community Mentoring Program

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.

The Waterford Community Mentoring Program will serve students ages 12-17 in the Waterford School District (WSD) who are or have been involved with the courts, or are at high risk of court involvement. The program will provide mentors for these students, who will devote a minimum of two hours per week in one-to-one, youth-directed activities or structured activities provided by program partners. Goals of the program are: 1) reduce student substance abuse; 2) reduce youth involvement in the court system; 3) decrease truancy; 4) increase at-risk students' prosocial skills and behaviors; and 5) increase the number of trained mentors who are available as a resource for WSD students. Specific objectives and performance indicators have been developed to measure progress toward these goals, utilizing the following process measures: Pre/post mentee surveys (from the Corporation for National and Community Service, with questions added to reflect project objectives); pre/post mentor surveys provided by Michigan State University Extension/ Youth and Community Development; caseload data from the district's Juvenile Justice Liaison; data from Waterford Youth Assistance on the number of students diverted from the courts to their program; program attendance logs; and data from WSD including attendance data and the annual reportable incident data.
CA/NCF