Does Mentoring Work?
Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado Would eleven Kids be dead if two young classmates had had a mentor to help them understand some positive alternatives to their horrific action? Mentoring Does Work!
Jennifer, a junior in high school,
was matched with Marianne as her mentor. Jennifer
lived in a single parent home with four siblings. She
volunteered for the mentor program because she did not want to follow in the footsteps of
her siblings and belong to a local gang. But
she wasnt sure it was avoidable. Marianne
and Jennifer became friends and decided they would work at improving Jennifers
grades - as she was failing some of her courses. After
a couple of months her grades were not improving and Marianne visited Jennifers home
to find that, with kids and adults coming and going, there was no quite place to study and
do homework. Marianne invited Jennifer to
come to her office after school where she could sit quietly and study. Occasionally Marianne would give a helping hand. Over the next couple of months, Jennifers
grades improved dramatically and other office workers liked having her around and offered
her a part-time job. Here is what Jennifer
has to say about mentoring with Marianne: "...My mentor has done so much for me and I
dont know where I would be without her. Now
I have a 3.83 GPA (one B in Math, were still working on that one). It seems like now, things are really starting to
come together. Im not nearly as confused as I was before. Im well on my way to being the first person
in my family to graduate from college." More Statistics on Mentoring A study by Proctor and Gamble of mentoring in Cincinnati schools showed that young people with mentors were more likely to
A Ford Foundation study of high school students from families receiving public assistance found that those with mentors were more likely than those without mentors to:
California Mentor Foundation surveyed 124 mentor programs with 36,251 mentors and 57,659 mentees. The survey showed that:
But what does it cost? Click here to continue. |