LegiStorm

Summary:

Youth mentoring refers to a relationship between youth — particularly those most at risk of experiencing negative outcomes in adolescence and adulthood — and the adults who support and guide them. The origin of the modern youth mentoring concept is credited to the efforts of charity groups that formed during the Progressive era of the early 1900s to provide practical assistance to poor and juvenile justice - involved youth, including help with finding employment. Approximately 4 .5 million youth today are involved in formal mentoring relationships through organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of America. Contemporary mentoring programs seek to improve outcomes and reduce risks among vulnerable youth by providing po sitive role models who regularly meet with the youth in community or school settings. Some programs have broad youth development goals , while others focus more narrowly on a particular outcome. Evaluations of the BBBS program and studies of other mentoring programs demonstrate an association between mentoring and some positive outcomes, but the impact of mentoring and the ability for mentored youth to sustain gains over time are less certain. There is no single overarch ing federal policy on mentoring or an entity that coordinates mentoring supports across the federal government. The Federal Mentoring Council had served as a resource on mentoring issues for the feder al government from 2006 to 2008 and is no longer active. Currently, t he federal government pro vides funding for mentoring pr imarily through a grant program with annual appropriations for the program of about $78 million to $90 million in recent years. This grant is administered by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Del inquency Prevention (OJJDP) within the Office of Justice Programs. Program funding has been used for research and direct mentoring services to select populations of youth, such as those involved or at risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system. Other federal agencies provide or are authorized to support mentoring as one aspect of a larger program. For example , select programs carried out by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) can provide mentoring, among other services. Yout h Challe NG e, an educational and leadership program for at - risk youth administered by the Department of Defense ’s (DOD ’s ) National Guard , includes mentoring as an aspect of its program. Federal agencies also coordinate on federal mentoring issues. Two othe r federal programs — the Mento ring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program and Safe and Drug - Free Schools (SDFS) Mentoring program — provided a significant source of federal funding for mentoring services. However, the programs were short - lived: funding for the MC P program was discontinued beginning with FY2011 , and funding for the SDFS program was discontinued beginning with FY2010. The MCP program was created in response to the growing number of children under age 18 with at least one parent incarcerated in a fed eral or state correctional facility. The program was intended, in part, to reduce the chance that mentored youth would use drugs and skip school. Similarly, the SDFS Mentoring program provided school - based mentoring to reduce school dropout and improve rel ationships for youth at risk of educational failure and with other risk factors. As part of its FY2010 budget justifications, the Obama Administration had proposed eliminating the program because of an evaluation showing that it did not have an impact on s tudents overall in terms of interpersonal relationships, academic outcomes, and delinquent behaviors. Issues relevant to the federal role in mentoring include the limitations of research on outcomes for mentored youth , the quality of mentoring programs, an d the potential need for additional men tors