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Mentors are Life Rafts for Children
February 2, 2005, MetroWest Daily News (Massachusetts)

By DAVID SHAPIRO AND MIKE CARSON
(David Shapiro is CEO of Mass Mentoring Partnership. Mike Carson is vice president and general manager of WHDH-Channel 7.)

My mom likes the mentoring program because it keeps me out of trouble. My mentor is so busy, but he takes time just to talk and play basketball with me. My mentor treats me the way I want to be treated. Without the mentoring program, where would I be?

These are the words of a boy in the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation's Mentoring Program in Lawrence. With his words in mind, we celebrated National Mentoring Month in January. While it heralds the power of a caring adult in the life of a child, National Mentoring Month also serves as a much-needed call to action. Recent research shows that there are more than 200,000 at-risk kids in Massachusetts and that for every two children in a mentoring relationship in our state, there is one on a waiting list.

Young people benefit significantly from attention, guidance, and support from caring adults. In her book, Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today's Youth, Dr. Jean Rhodes of the University of Massachusetts concludes that mentors influence young people in three vital ways: first, by enhancing social skills and emotional well-being; second, by improving cognitive skills through dialogue and listening and third, by serving as a role model and advocate.

According to Public/Private Ventures, at-risk kids who have had one year of mentoring, compared to their peers without mentors, are:

52 percent less likely to skip school

46 percent less likely to start using illegal drugs

26 percent less likely to start drinking

33 percent less likely to use violence

Fortunately, in the Boston Metropolitan area and throughout the state, quality youth mentoring programs of all shapes and size abound. Between Big Brothers of Mass Bay, Big Sisters Association of Greater Boston, and Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters, our city hosts more Big Brothers Big Sisters matches than any city in the nation; an incredible accomplishment for a city of our size. We also have a broad range of other mentoring programs.

Look around our neighborhoods and you'll find a rich tapestry of faith-based mentoring programs and mentoring components within community and youth-focused organizations like the Chinese Economic Development Council and South Boston T.E.A.M. Boston is also host to innovative programs targeting specific populations of youth, such as Partners for Youth with Disabilities or Adoption and Foster Care Mentoring.

Mentoring, as a component of quality after-school programming, is growing dramatically thanks to innovative school and mentoring program administrators and investments by social leaders like Boston After-School Enterprise, Mass 2020, United Way of Mass Bay, The Boston Foundation and The Yawkey Foundation. Many employers in both the public and private sectors have also made it easy to become involved. Companies like IBM, State Street, and Liberty Mutual have programs where employees mentor youth.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has one of the most generous mentoring leave policies for public employees in the country, allowing its 75,000 employees eight hours a month of paid leave time to mentor a child. And Mayor Menino's recent announcement that the City will increase its investment in its street worker program clearly exhibits a belief in the power of the increased presence of caring adults in the lives our young people. We encourage other employers to follow their lead.

We also need further investment in the health and vitality of formal mentoring programs as an effective youth development strategy. The impact of formal mentoring programs can only be maximized when the proper training and standards are in place. Liberty Mutual has funded an innovative $1 million mentoring initiative to invest in mentoring programs, fund research on emerging mentoring models such as group and site-based mentoring and provide training and technical assistance to all programs through Mass Mentoring Partnership, the state's umbrella group for mentoring.

Despite support from corporations, government, nonprofits and a public awareness campaign lead by Channel 7, mentoring programs still desperately need volunteer mentors of all ages to get kids off their waitlists and into quality relationships.

We encourage you to take action. Thank someone who mentored you. Better yet, contact a mentoring program and become a mentor. Doing so, will make a big difference to one of the thousands of kids waiting.

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