Goodwill Youth Mentoring Program

The Mentoring Opportunities for Youth Initiative, Category 3 (Mentoring Programs for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System) provides funding to support youth mentoring organizations that have a demonstrated partnership with a juvenile justice agency. The focus is to provide mentoring services to those youth screened as being low risk to public safety by a juvenile justice agency as part of an overall diversion approach with a goal of rehabilitation and accountability. This program is authorized and funded pursuant to Pub. L. No. 115-141, 132 Stat. 348, 423.

Goodwill Industries of the Valleys (GIV) will institute the first-ever evidence-based mentoring programming in rural Franklin County, VA, to reduce recidivism and school dropout rates, mitigate substance use rates, and facilitate improved relationships with parents and guardians among youth involved in the juvenile justice system. GIV will partner with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Virginia to provide program design support, requisite training, and quality assurance oversight to ensure that the GIV mentoring program implements evidence-based practices in compliance with the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America mentoring model. In addition, GIV will partner with the 22nd District Court Service Unit of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice to offer mentoring to Franklin County youth, ages 12–17 at the time of initiation, who have registered an intake complaint, are eligible for participation in diversion programs, and are judged to be of low risk to public safety.

Using OJJDP grant dollars, GIV will serve 105 youth through both individual and group mentoring in a variety of site-based and school-based settings for a period of 1 year. Mentoring activities will be augmented by the provision of year-round life-skills training modules primarily geared toward improving social competence and providing career counseling and job-readiness skills. Family members will periodically be offered life-skills trainings to strengthen parent and family engagement. CA/NCF