CLICKS - CLEO Legally Inspired College Ko-horts of Students

The Multi-State Mentoring Program provides funding to support established mentoring organizations in their efforts to strengthen and/or expand their existing mentoring activities within local chapters or sub-awardees in five or more states to reduce juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, truancy, and other problem and high-risk behaviors. FY 2014 funding will address the factors that can lead to or serve as a catalyst for delinquency or other problem behaviors in underserved youth, including youth in high-risk environments, children of incarcerated parents and tribal youth. The program is comprised of three categories: Category 1 for organizations implementing one-on-one mentoring programs, Category 2 for Group mentoring programs and Category 3 for a combination of both one-on-one and group mentoring.

The Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) will conduct a multi-state mentoring project titled "CLEO Legally Inspired College Ko-horts of Students" (CLICKS). The goal of the project is to improve outcomes for at-risk, high-risk, and underserved youth in Illinois, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. by enabling them to participate in a variety of activities with mentors who are committed to helping young people. With student participants in multiple states, CLEO has an established history of providing mentoring services to adolescents, college, and post-graduate students. Consistent with the My Brother's Keeper initiative, the primary focus of CLICKS will be boys and young men of color. In addition to partnering with law schools and bar associations, CLICKS will also partner with an officer of the U.S. Public Health Services (USPHS) to bring together USPHS and military service members as additional mentors and advisors to assist in providing services for youth of military parents in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, where there is a high population of underserved youth.

Performance measures include but are not limited to: percent increase in the number of program mentors recruited; pecent of program mentors that successfully complete trainings each year; percent of trained program mentors that indicate increased knowledge of the program area each year; percent increase in mentor retention rate; percent increase in youth enrolled since the beginning of the grant period; and percent of mentoring programs that consist of active partners representing each of the following groups: non-profit service organization and/or faith-based organizations, private industry, secondary education providers and post-secondary education providers; percent decrease of program youth who offend/re-offend; and percent of program youth that exhibit desired change in targeted behaviors. CA/NCF