Finding the Model Programs
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Technically speaking, I’m not Irish–although my grandmother did all that ancestry stuff before it was trendy to Irish, so who knows what she might have “discovered” had she done the geneology-thing just a few years later–but my sons are part-Irish, so I’m pretty sure I still get to celebrate by default. Or at least mock the green beer and participate in the toasts.
Anyway, today, I discovered a pretty nifty website for people looking for good youth outreach programs. It’s the Model Programs Guide from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquncy Prevention (OJJDP–catchy name, huh?), and it offers evaluations and descriptions of a number of programs around the country focused on helping at-risk youth. In addition, it has some helpful information about what kinds of programs are out there, and what makes a program successful. I found it while looking for more mentoring programs for boys, and found these helpful guidelines for determining what makes for a good mentoring program:
- A high level of contact between mentor and mentee.
- A relationship which defines the mentor as a friend rather than an authoritative figure.
There was also an interesting comparison of school-based mentoring programs (which tend to focus largely on schoolwork and education), and community-based mentoring programs (which tend to have a broader social focus). In essence, school-based programs can be very effective and a good complement to community-based programs (especially for children with a need for more educational support), but may not have quite the same range of impact as a good community-based program.
As in everything else, when trying to help a struggling boy, finding a program that is meant to help him is only half the battle. The real challenge is to find an effective program. Fortunately, resources like the OJJDP page (and us) are here to help.
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