Helping young people to fulfill their potential

All youth need guidance and support from caring adults, particularly those with risk factors affecting their future potential. These factors include poor school attendance, low grades, negative behavior and difficult circumstances, such as foster or kinship care, an incarcerated family member, or growing up in gang-impacted neighborhoods.

Flintridge Center and mentoring agencies in Pasadena and Altadena are helping to turn around the lives of troubled youth through programs that match them with volunteer adult mentors. The mentors serve as positive role models. They offer encouragement and guidance to help young people see themselves in a more self-affirming light and stay motivated and focused on their education. The support and guidance help keep the students on track so that they graduate and go on to lead productive lives.

Youth of Promise Mentoring Program

Flintridge’s innovative program recruits volunteers from the Pasadena Police and Fire Departments as mentors. Flintridge launched the program at Washington Middle School in the spring of 2010 to serve youth described as severely high-risk and high-need by school personnel. These are children functioning far below basic learning, with grade point averages below 2.0 and higher truancy and absentee rates than their peers. But we call them youth of promise, because when we care for and invest in them, they are full of promise.

The police and fire fighter mentors meet weekly with these youngsters, either one-on-one or in small groups, for a minimum of five hours per month. The students forge strong relationships with the public safety professionals who are seen as inspirational role models. The role of the mentors is to build on the resiliency that youth of promise have developed and to help them navigate obstacles and focus on academic achievement.

In addition to improving student grades and behavior, the program has also had a positive impact on police-community relations. Mentors meet and often develop relationships with the students’ family members. This builds trust between the community and law enforcement, while enhancing the public safety officials’ understanding of the challenges and stresses in low income communities of color.

Events that bring together the mentors, students and family members also help forge community ties. A group bike ride around the Rose Bowl led by Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez and Fire Department Chief Dennis Downs is being planned.

As of March 2011, 19 students were matched with a police or firefighter mentor. The goal is to serve 100 students within the next two years and to add an innovative tutoring component to the program.

Pasadena Mentoring Partners - Changing the community one match at a time

Flintridge manages a multi-agency partnership that provides leadership, resources, training and networking opportunities to mentoring-focused community- and faith-based organizations in the Pasadena/Altadena area. The partnership seeks to increase the number of mentoring relationships for troubled students in Northwest Pasadena and to promote safe mentoring programs that follow best practices.

The mentoring service agencies include: Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, College Access Plan, Lake Avenue Community Foundation, Mentoring and Partnership for Youth Development (MPYD), Teen Futures and YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley, as well as Flintridge’s Youth of Promise Mentoring Program.

Students are typically referred for mentoring by teachers, counselors, administrators and after-school program personnel. Volunteer mentors are recruited with the help of community organizations such as All Saints Church. All mentors must commit to meeting with their mentees for at least five hours per month for one year. They undergo a screening process that includes an application, program orientation, personal interview and reference checks. The mentoring agencies match the students and the volunteer mentors, and they monitor and support the mentoring relationships.

Each mentoring partner organization has a different service delivery model and approach to working with youth. While MPYD’s mission is to help young males, College Access Plan focuses on college and career guidance. The diversity of the agencies gives the students a choice in selecting a “support culture” that best fits their needs. The mentored students show improved outcomes in academic performance, attitude and behavior.

Training Mentors in Best Practices

Flintridge Center coordinates a variety of educational workshops to strengthen the skills of the mentors and mentoring agencies and to increase their knowledge of best practices in mentoring relationships. All mentors involved in a Pasadena Mentoring Partner program must attend Flintridge’s two-hour training, The Basics of Mentoring, prior to being matched with a student. After the initial training, mentors attend a minimum of eight additional hours of training per year. The trainings are free for the mentors.

Be a Mentor

Many more young people at Washington Middle School and John Muir High School are in need of a mentor’s guidance and support. If you would like to make a significant contribution to the life of a young person by serving as a mentor, please email Ricky Pickens or call him at (626) 449-0839, ext. 115.

Fact Sheet (PDF) "Making a connection with kids," Pasadena Sun

 

Photos: Brian Biery