What is Mentoring?

Mentoring is a one-to-one relationship over a prolonged period of time between a youth and an adult who provides consistent support, guidance and concrete help as the younger person goes through a difficult or challenging situation or period in life. The goal of mentoring is to help youths gain the skills and confidence to be responsible for their own futures including, and with an increasing emphasis on, academic and occupational skills.

                                  Why are Mentoring Programs Needed?

In a closely knit family and neighborhood, children and adults alike could readily forge many kinds of supportive relationships. But today those opportunities are often missing. Many children no longer attend school in their own neighborhoods. Single-parent families are no longer the exception, and some families live in geographic or emotional isolation from relatives and neighbors. Young people today often lack skills to develop helpful social networks.

                                                        Training

All Youth Challenge mentors are required to attend a mentor training workshop. The workshop lasts approximately four hours and consists of a multi-media presentation from the post-residential staff. Visitation off-post with the student follows the training.

                                          Who is Eligible to Be a Mentor?

Any adult (minimum age of twenty-five) who is interested in and committed to the young person's success is eligible to apply. Attributes of a mentor include maturity, integrity, leadership, commitment, availability, and compatibility to the young person.

                                                How Can One Apply?

A mentor application may be obtained by calling 1-800-820-6692 or by downloading a Mentor_Application_Packet_06 .   A criminal background check will be conducted on all mentor candidates prior to being matched to a student.

                                                  Why Mentoring?

Young people want support. The majority of young people cite parents or other adults as the first source of advice for troubling personal problems.
There was a time when our society was made up of extended families and close communities. Aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends often served naturally as mentors.
While families bear the primary obligation to care for their children and to help them become healthy, contributing citizens, other institutions can help families acclimate to a rapidly changing world. A mentor can provide the nurturing, supportive adult relationship absent in the lives of many of our young people.
Adolescents today are an increasingly isolated population. Changes in the structure of the family, in community and neighborhood relationships and in workplace arrangements have deprived young people of the adult contacts that historically have been primary sources of socialization and support for development.
Many young people lack nurturing and supportive primary adult relationships. A mentor can provide that role, and perhaps more importantly, teach and guide the young person to find others to fill that role as well.
 

                                  A mentor must be willing to make a
                     specified commitment of time
                     and keep it!