The Miami Mentoring Collaborative proposes to support a local continuum of mentoring services for targeted youth in Miami-Dade County, FL and enhance the capacity of local youth serving organizations

OJJDP supports wide-ranging mentoring initiatives to reduce juvenile delinquency, gang involvement, academic failure, victimization, and school dropout rates. While mentoring is traditionally a volunteer-based service, a need exists for staff and resources to support the efforts of each mentoring program. Developing and maintaining mentoring partnerships and collaboratives can build capacity and increase the power of mentoring to benefit more young people. Local mentoring partnerships and collaboratives can bring together public and private sector leadership, eliminate duplication of efforts, fill service gaps, and offer centralized services. The successful award recipient(s) will fund a coordinator position to support a local continuum of mentoring services for targeted youth. This program is authorized by the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 617.

The purpose of this project is to fund a coordinator position to support a local continuum of mentoring services for targeted youth in Miami-Dade County, FL. This project will support the Miami Mentoring Collaborative, which includes BBBS of Greater Miami as the lead agency. The BBBS Mentoring Resource Center (MRC) Director is the local mentoring coordinator dedicated to guide and support this collaborative. Additional partners include Hope for Miami (HFM) and Communities in Schools of Miami (CIS), which also offer mentoring services as part of their organizational programming. Collaborative partners will work together to successfully reach objectives and goals of this project. HFM utilizes the Amachi Mentoring model among its services offered to at-risk youth. CIS offers mentoring services through its dropout prevention program Bridges to Graduation. Additional active mentoring service organizations will be sought to join the collaborative. The youth to be served attend low performing schools and live in single-parent homes in underserved communities. Demographics are: 57% African-American & Haitian, 33% Hispanic, 3% Caucasian, and 7% Multi-racial/other; about 40% are male and 60% female. Eighty-three percent sit at or below the poverty level and 20% have a parent incarcerated. The goals of the collaborative are to increase the number of youth matched with mentors; increase resources dedicated to mentoring; improve quality standards for mentoring programs; enhance the collaborative by adding new mentoring partners; and expand mentoring programs and opportunities tailored to the needs and circumstances of the targeted youth.
CA/NCF