Baltimore City Mentoring Collaborative

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 Baltimore City Mentoring Collaborative is a partnership of eight national mentoring organizations committed to expanding and enhancing mentoring services for Baltimore City youth ages 5-17 years, particularly youth of color, who are considered at risk or at high risk of dropping out of school and/or entering the juvenile justice system. The Collaborative will reach out to neighborhoods currently underserved by mentoring programs; recruit local mentoring organizations to join the partnership; add a committee of advisors representing community and faith-based organizations, universities, and other parties; share intellectual resources and best practices; and enhance data-collection capacity in order to measure outcomes and indicators of their success. The overarching goals of the initiative are to: 1) increase the number of at-risk youth, particularly those of color, living in Baltimore City who participate in high quality mentoring relationships; 2) provide supportive mentoring relationships that result in improved school attendance among participants; and 3) provide supportive mentoring relationships that result in reduced contacts with the court system among participants. In addition to performance measures required by OJJDP, the mentoring partners will work to achieve the following indicators of success: 10% increase in youth served; 10% increase in mentors recruited; and 10% increase in mentors retained.
CA/NCF