National Mentoring Center
(http://www.nwrel.org/mentoring/)
The National Mentoring Center (NMC) is a project of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Oregon. It provides such services as the following:
- Large-scale training conference and workshop design and implementation
- In-depth coaching and program consulting
- Electronic information resources on development and management
- Print material on development and dissemination
- Data collection and evaluation
- Support for state and national initiatives
NMC provides technical assistance and training and is the designated technical assistance provider for OJJDP’s JUMP program (see below). Among the resources to be found on the NMC Web site are the following:
- Publications, including Sustainability Planning and Resource Development for Youth Mentoring Programs; Marketing for the Recruitment of Mentors: A Guide to Finding and Attracting Volunteers; Training Youth Mentors; and Foundations of Successful Youth Mentoring: A Guidebook for Program Development.
- Technical Assistance Packets, including packets on recruiting, training, and supporting mentors; mentoring sexual minority youth; and measuring the quality of mentor-youth relationships.
- Forms for mentoring programs, including mentor application forms, parent permission forms, mentor activity log, and teacher referral forms.
- Strengthening Mentoring Programs Training Curriculum
- Online workshops and tutorials on such subjects as mentoring program development, sustainability, and pregnancy prevention.
- MentorExchange, an electronic mailing list for mentoring program coordinators, staff, and volunteers.
NMC also provides training and offers a lending library of books and materials on mentoring.
Mentor/National Mentoring Partnership
(http://www.mentoring.org)
Mentor is a private nonprofit organization that builds mentoring infrastructure by supporting state mentoring partnerships, produces and disseminates research on mentoring through the National Mentoring Institute, and provides technical support to mentoring programs. In partnership with the FBI, Mentor’s SafetyNET program offers fast, low-cost background checks for mentors. Publications available online at Mentor’s Web site include the following:
- The Handbook of Youth Mentoring
- Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers
- Mentoring Immigrant Youth
- Spanning the Gender Gap in Mentoring
- Natural Mentors
- Mentoring Children of Prisoners
- Mentoring and Race
- Positive Support: Mentoring and Depression Among High Risk Youth
Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP)
JUMP is a program implemented by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. OJJDP has funded and provided technical assistance to almost 200 mentoring programs since JUMP’s inception in 1996. For more information on JUMP see “Juvenile Mentoring Program: A Progress Review,” by Laurence Novotney, Elizabeth Mertinko, James Lange, and Tara Kelley Baker. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, September 2000. (http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/182209.pdf).
Information Technology International (ITI) evaluated the JUMP program and provides many valuable documents on JUMP and mentoring on its Web site (http://www.itiincorporated.com). These resources include annual reports; case studies of JUMP programs in a number of states; JUMP evaluation reports; and publications on evaluating mentoring programs, mentoring in faith-based organizations, mentoring Latino youth, and mentoring as a reentry strategy for court-involved youth.
Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS)
(http://carsmentoring.org)
CARS is funded by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs to provide mentoring technical assistance and training to community and school-based organizations in California.
CARS’ College of Mentoring offers short online courses on such subjects as the following:
- What Makes Mentoring Work
- Starting a Mentoring Program
- Orientation for Mentoring
- Orientation for Mentors
- Finding Mentors
- Mentoring Programs: Improving Academic Performance
CARS also features publications, available online, on topics such as fundraising,
sustainability, evaluation, matching mentors and mentees, and training.
EMT
(http://emt.org)
EMT is a nonprofit organization that works in collaboration with CARS and offers mentoring publications online, including the following:
- How to Develop an Operating Manual for Your Mentoring Program
- Starting a Mentoring Program
- Best Practices for Mentoring Programs
- Designing an Effective Training Program for Your Mentors
- Responsible Mentoring: Talking About Drugs, Sex, and Other Difficult Issues
- Sustaining Program Viability
- Mentoring Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth
EMT also offers a series of mentoring workshops (available only in California) and curricula (available online), including the following:
- “Creating and Sustaining a Winning Match”
- “Foster Youth Mentorship Training for Program Managers”
- “Preparing Mentees for Success”
- "Fundraising for Mentoring Programs”
Other Publications Available Online
Effectiveness of Mentor Programs: Review of the Literature from 1995 to 2000
- Lisa Foster. Sacramento: California State Library, 2001.
(http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/01/04/01-004.pdf)
An examination and summary of the research literature on youth mentoring.
Mentoring Programs and Youth Development: A Synthesis
- S. Jekielek, K. Moore, and E. Hair. Washington D.C.: Child Trends, 2002
(http://www.childtrends.org/Files/MentoringSynthesisFINAL2.6.02Jan.pdf).
This report examines the role that mentoring plays in helping youth develop capacities related to education and cognitive attainment, health and safety, social and emotional well-being, and self-sufficiency. The report also describes five mentoring programs that have been evaluated.
Positive Support: Mentoring and Depression Among High-Risk Youth
Shawn Bauldry Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures, 2006. (http://www.ppv.org/ppv/publications/assets/202_publication.pdf)
An examination of the mentoring component of the National Faith-Based Initiative demonstration projects, which showed that mentoring acted as a barrier against depression, which had an effect upon how the mentored youths handled social conflicts, substance use, and recidivism. This monograph also examines the challenges of implementing a mentoring program for high-risk youth.
Youth Mentoring: A Social Development Approach to Youth Health Promotion (http://www.gih.org/usr_doc/49493.pdf)
This Grantmakers Health Issue Brief provides a summary of key points from a November 1999 forum featuring grantmakers who made major commitments to youth mentoring as a health promotion strategy as well as researchers and those operating programs in the field.
