PRESS RELEASE - New Data Shows Mentoring As a Proven Tool to Help Combat Challenges

For Disconnected Youth - Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Mayor Bloomberg’s Office Release Groundbreaking Data

 

January 25, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The second annual National Mentoring Summit, hosted by MENTOR, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Harvard School of Public Health, The Office of Juvenile and Justice Prevention and United Way Worldwide, on January 24, provided the backdrop for outstanding data linking mentoring to positive academic, socio-emotional and behavioral outcomes for youth who face adversity.

Mack Koonce, co-CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA), announced the Big Brothers Big Sisters Youth Outcomes Report at a luncheon during the Summit.  The groundbreaking report shows statistically significant improvements for youth during the first year of enrollment in the organization’s nationwide mentoring program in three targeted outcome areas – educational success, avoidance of risky behaviors, such as truancy, and socio-emotional competency.  “Youth progress in these areas is linked to longer-term outcomes, such as high school graduation, avoidance of juvenile delinquency and college or job readiness,” Koonce added. “Big Brothers Big Sisters’ continued internal and external research that feed into our outcomes evaluations systems enhance our capabilities to serve youth and communities with increasingly greater impact.”  For more information on the report, along with additional information contained in the 2011 Big Brothers Big Sisters Youth Outcomes Survey (YOS) Complementing the BBBSA study, Leslie A. Cornfeld, special advisor, Office of the New York City Mayor, and chair of the mayor's Interagency Task Force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism & School Engagement, spoke about the innovative NYC Success Mentor Corps program launched by Mayor Bloomberg’s Task Force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism & School Engagement.  She called the initiative a research-based, data-driven mentoring model that seeks to improve school attendance, behavior and educational outcomes for at-risk students in low-income communities citywide.

The initiative, known as Success Mentors, operates from the mayor’s office in partnership with the New York City (NYC) Department of Education and is uniquely positioned for impact. Success Mentors come into schools at a leadership level, have direct access to key school leaders and community organizations, have unprecedented access to critical student data, are able to take advantage of interagency resources and expertise, and are part of a centralized, innovative infrastructure that evaluates and supports their work in real time. She said that Mayor Bloomberg is committed to expanding innovative, high impact mentoring for NYC’s youth to help them succeed in school and in life. She urged others at the conference to consider being the “engine to close the mentoring gap” by encouraging such partnerships in other cities.

“New York City is committed to being a national leader in innovative, high impact, evidence-based models of mentoring to help NYC youth succeed in school, and in life,” said Cornfeld. “In partnership with the Department of Education and mentoring leaders like MENTOR, we are reaching over 4,000 at-risk students in a little over a year through the NYC Success Mentor program, which resulted in chronically absent students with mentors gaining over 7,000 days of attendance last year."

“It is an honor to present two examples of the way mentoring is moving the needle for our young people,” said David Shapiro, president and CEO of MENTOR.   “It is important that this data is coming from the nonprofit community, as it underscores the nonprofit community’s commitment to ensuring solid, metric-driven results.”

The National Mentoring Summit is being held Tuesday, January 24, and Wednesday, January 25, at The Fairmont in Washington, D.C.  The Summit’s Presenting Sponsor is Viacom.  Bank of America and BNY Mellon are Supporting Sponsors for the events.  For more information, please contact Ellen Christman at (703)224-2255 or echristman@mentoring.org.

For more information on Success Mentors, visit www.nyc.gov/html/truency.