Harvard Public Health NOW

White House Gives Boost to National Mentoring Efforts, Led in Part by HSPH's Center for Health Communication

The President and First Lady Michelle Obama gave a tremendous boost January 20 to the national movement to recruit volunteer mentors to help transform the lives of America’s youth. Mentors and their mentees from across the country joined the President and Mrs. Obama at a White House event to highlight the value of mentoring and mark the 9th Annual National Mentoring Month. The news was announced in a press release.

Watch the archived webcast of the White House event.

The National Mentoring Month effort is led by HSPH, MENTOR, and the Corporation for National and Community Service — the agency that leads domestic service initiatives.

This year’s campaign featured General Colin Powell in a public service announcement, and leveraged the work of 50 local partners across the country as well as corporations to mobilize more Americans to serve as mentors.

Jay Winsten, Frank Stanton Center Director for the Center for Health Communication at HSPH, said in a press release: “Youth mentoring is a highly effective public health intervention. Research has shown that programs that rely on volunteer mentors can play a powerful role in reducing drug abuse and youth violence, while greatly enhancing a young person's prospects for leading a healthy and productive life.”

Federal support for mentoring as a tool to increase young people’s prospects for leading a healthy and productive life has increased over the years, and taken center stage under the Obama administration. The Corporation recently launched Serve.gov/mentor to help Americans find opportunities to mentor and chairs the Federal Mentoring Council, an interagency working group that coordinates federal efforts to support mentoring programs.

HSPH's Center for Health Communication spearheaded the development of National Mentoring Month as an outgrowth of its media campaign promoting mentoring launched in 1997 with funding from The MCJ Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and MetLife Foundation. The original stimulus for the campaign was a 1997 national summit on the future of America's children organized by philanthropist Ray Chambers and chaired by General Colin Powell with all the living U.S. presidents in attendance. National Mentoring Month was launched in 2002 with Harvard and MENTOR as lead partners; the Corporation for National and Community Service joined the campaign as a lead partner in 2007.

For more information on mentoring, visit Serve.gov/mentor and Mentoring.org.

-- Photo by Susan Moses.