Invest in the Future of America's Children: Support Funding for Mentoring

THE CHALLENGE

Research demonstrates that youth who participate in mentoring relationships experience a multitude of positive benefits. In the US today, 17.6 million young people – nearly half the youth population – want or need mentors to help them reach their full potential, and nearly 44 million adults say they are willing to become mentors. Yet, due to capacity limitations, only 3 million youngsters are in formal mentoring relationships. This leaves nearly 15 million American young people still in need of mentors; these young people comprise the nation’s “mentoring gap.”

WHY MENTORING?

A growing body of research confirms what we instinctively know to be true – that a caring adult can make a big difference in a child’s future. Mentors serve as role models, advocates, friends, and advisors. Numerous studies document that mentors help young people augment social skills and emotional well-being, improve cognitive skills, and plan for the future. High-quality mentoring also results in better attendance at school, lowers dropout rates, and decreases involvement with drugs and violent behavior. In short, quality mentoring works.

DOING MENTORING THE HIGH-QUALITY WAY

Creating successful mentoring relationships entails much more than simply assigning a well-meaning adult to a young person and “letting the magic happen.” Money, personnel and resources are required to initiate and support quality mentoring relationships. High-quality mentoring, based on the Elements of Effective Practice, comes at a cost. The average cost per child per year for a mentoring match ranges from $1,000 for a school-based mentoring program to $1,500 for a community-based mentoring program.

To run high quality programs, mentoring organizations must:

Have well-trained, professional staff dedicated to the program (one-third of programs indicate that hiring and retaining quality staff is a challenge due to low salaries)
Conduct recruitment campaigns to attract potential volunteers to the mentoring program (over 80% of programs have young people on their waiting lists for mentors, due to lack of staff, funding and volunteers)
Interview, check references, and perform criminal background checks on each potential volunteer. Many programs indicated that a reduced cost in background checks and additional funding would be beneficial and would allow them to better screen potential mentors.
Carefully match each mentor with a young person, and provide thorough initial training plus ongoing training and support, monitoring, and guidance to both mentor and mentee.

All of these elements, plus more, are essential to a mentoring relationship’s ultimate success. When properly prepared and supported, a mentor is more likely to connect with the young person and stick with the relationship when times get hard. Again, research confirms that when mentors are provided with training and ongoing support, the mentoring relationships are closer and lead to stronger positive effects on the young people being mentored.

According to a 2005 national poll on mentoring that asked mentors what would have improved their overall mentoring experience, 30% acknowledged better training and 35% responded that additional resources would have enhanced their experience, both of which come at a high cost for programs.

FEDERAL FUNDING FOR MENTORING

In the 2003 State of the Union address, the President announced his intent to request $450 million for mentoring over three years to support the recruiting and training of one million mentors. Congress subsequently approved a significant increase in federal funding for mentoring in FY2004. The beneficiaries of this increase were two existing federal programs. Each was funded at $50 million in FY2004 and in each year since then:

Department of Education’s Mentoring Programs grants. This program provides grants to local mentoring organizations to establish or expand their mentoring program.
Department of Health and Human Services’ Mentoring for Children of Prisoners program. This program provides funding to organizations that match mentors with young people whose parents are incarcerated.

In both programs, schools and community- and faith-based organizations are eligible to apply for funding. Grant funds can support recruiting, screening, and training of mentors, as well as hiring and professional development of mentoring coordinators and support staff.

PROPOSED 50% CUT IN FUNDING

The President’s proposed FY2009 budget would cut mentoring funding in half by eliminating the Department of Education’s Mentoring Programs grants, while sustaining the Mentoring Children of Prisoners program. The proposed elimination of the Mentoring Programs grants will be detrimental to the availability and quality of youth mentoring:

$50 million is needed for FY2009 to support the second and third year of funding for existing programs. Each grant awarded under this program is a three-year project, and the elimination of this program will terminate existing grantee projects prematurely.
Research shows that when mentoring relationships terminate unexpectedly, it can have a detrimental impact on the child. Ending these grants early will likely result in dozens of mentoring programs closing, prematurely ending hundreds, if not thousands, of mentoring relationships.
Besides the immediate one-year impact, the elimination of this program will mean the end of the only authorized federal program specifically focused on providing mentors for children facing a wide range of issues. This will significantly impact the ability of mentoring programs to continue to serve children, and will ultimately mean fewer children in mentoring relationships.

WHY SUPPORT SUSTAINED FEDERAL FUNDING?

Most mentoring programs are initiated by nonprofit organizations, faith-based institutions, and community groups that have little or no capital. Given the cost involved in effectively serving the young people in need of mentoring around the country, mentoring programs must have access to adequate funding to run high-quality programs and increase the number of children served.

A significantly greater federal investment in mentoring is needed for several reasons:

Federal funding can seed the creation of new mentoring efforts and expand the reach of existing ones. Federal grants help mentoring organizations leverage private sector contributions, increasing long-term financial stability and sustainability.

Without increased funding, mentoring organizations will never be able to recruit, train, and support all of the mentors necessary to bridge the mentoring gap.
In a survey conducted of 1000 mentoring programs across the country, 78.8% admitted that fundraising is very or somewhat difficult for their program, and 53.8% of programs are concerned that they will have to shrink in size or end their operations due to lack of funding.
Existing federal grant programs for mentoring competitively fund the highest quality applicants that demonstrate sound and effective mentoring plans and practices, and provide flexible grant funding to best address local needs. This funding promotes local control and rewards high quality and effectiveness.

MENTOR encourages Congress to continue funding both of these critical federal grant programs for mentoring at $50 million each.