National Mentoring Month
Today, over 8.5 million youth lack supportive, sustained relationships with caring adults.
In response, the National Mentoring Program was created by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Catholic Charities USA to aid in increasing school attendance and preventing truancy in at-risk youth.
In Catholic Charities’ North Region Youth Mentoring Program, a case manager pairs at-risk youth with an adult-positive role model. The mentor spends at least 2 hours a week with their mentee. The goal of the program is to increase grades and school attendance, as well as help the mentee overcome certain behaviors by focusing on his or her future goals.
One of our mentees started to work with her mentor regarding the goal of improving her skills and knowledge of babysitting. The Eckhart Library was holding a babysitting training and with the assistance of the mentor got the application for the training to the mentee’s mom. After finally getting it completed and turned in the mentee attended the babysitting training. The mentee passed the training and was informed she did a great job. The mentee is excited to have improved her skills and the next goal is to work on the possibility of babysitting to earn money. This was a great experience because it was initiated by the mentee, and she saw it through to the end.