“BACK TO THE BASICS” School-based Male Mentoring

DePaul University Center – November 15, 2013Presented by: Stephen Powell / @MrMentorSteve @MentoringUSA

Mentoring USA Milestones• Began in 1987 as a New York Statewide mentoring model created by former New

York First Lady Matilda Raffa Cuomo to decrease high school drop out rates• Incorporated as Mentoring USA in 1995 to serve more communities, under the

HELP USA umbrella of services• Internationally expanded to create Mentoring USA-Italia in 1998. Since then, the

model has been used in Spain, Latvia and Belgium.• National Program Expansion launches in 2007• Developed partnership with Susan Taylor/National CARES Mentoring in 2008• National program expansion w/Bloomingdale’s, partnering with Polished

Pebbles • Partnership with the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare 2011 to

institutionalize mentoring through their cultural “sharing" • MEN-TOUR: Recruit. Reclaim. Restore. launch via support from the Open Society

Foundation Campaign for Black Male Achievement - 2011

Site-based mentoring• In schools (before, during and after school)• At community centers• At foster care and adoption agencies• In corporate offices• At housing facilities• At faith-based institutions (churches,

mosques, synagogues, temples, etc.)

Mentee population• ELL (English Language Learners)• Foster Care• LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender) • Co-ed• Children of incarcerated parents• Gender specific• Single-parent and dual-parent households

Role of the Mentor• Academic support• Goal setting• Career exploration• Emotional support• Exposure to new things• Active listener in a “safe space”

Financial Education

Healthy Lifestyles & Self-Esteem

B.R.A.V.E. (Biased-Related Anti-Violence Education) / Anti-Bullying

Assessing the need for mentoring

• 80% of students in U.S. schools now have working mothers.

• Fewer ‘positive’ alternatives between 3pm – 7pm for children in the U.S.

• 40% high school graduation rate in underserved communities.

Assessing the need for male mentoring

U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2007 laid bare several facts regarding gun homicides in the black community - trends that continue unabated:

-- Blacks were victims of an estimated 805,000 nonfatal violent crimes and of about 8,000 homicides in 2005. While blacks accounted for 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, they were victims in 15 percent of all nonfatal violent crimes and nearly half of all homicides," the report said.

-- Young, black males were many times more likely to be killed with a gun than black females.

-- Blacks living in urban areas were more likely than those in suburban or rural areas to be victims of violence," said the report. --In 1920, 90 percent of black families had a father in the house. In 1960, 80 percent of black families had a father in the house. In 2011, 30 percent of black families had a father in the house.

NYC Young Men’s Initiative

• The NYC Men’s Initiative (YMI) was launched in August 2011 to support Black and Latino young men and remove barriers on their pathways to success

• $43 million annual investment – City of NY, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Open Society Foundations Campaign for Black Male Achievement

• Mentoring For R.E.A.L. (Resilience Education Attendance Leadership) – targeting schools with chronic absenteeism and truancy issues

Meeting our boys where they are

• Classroom

• Sports (600 hours per year x 4 years) = 2,400

• Creating pipelines for success

What are you downloading into the spirit of our children?

Our language and actions create spiritual and emotional deposits, or spiritual and emotional withdrawals.

Use language to set the tone for a safe inclusive conversation and relationship

buildingMentoring/support/guidance is not an indictment on children, families and communities. Mentoring is the village in action.

"And how are the children?“ – Maasai Tribe

Replace “At-Risk” with “At-Promise”; “On the Brink of Success”;“Champions of the Cusp”

“Mentor Sunday” Service – National Mentoring Month (January)

Trinity Mentoring Partners

Metropolitan Baptist Church-Newark, NJMentoring USA

Greater Newark CARESNewark Mentoring Movement

Communities in SchoolsTied to Greatness

Eagle Academy for Young Men-Newark

Trinity Mentoring Design• Option A: Congregants from the faith community

mentoring youth at the church’s community center

• Option B: Adopting a local school/working outside the walls of the church

• Option C: Men from the church working with boys returning to their communities from detention centers

• Male mentor recruitment (faith community)

• Fatherhood capacity building

• Peer-to-peer mentoring

• Open Society Foundation Campaign for Black Male Achievement Funded

The need to affirm our boys

Rites of Passage Marks a time when a person reaches a new

and significant change in his/her life; it is something that nearly all societies recognize and often hold ceremonies for. Most rites of passage fall into three main phases: separation, transition, and incorporation.

Separation Stage

During the separation phase, the participant is taken away from his/her familiar environment and former role and enters a very different and sometimes foreign routine that they are forced to adjust to and become familiar with

Transition Stage

The transition phase is the time that the participant learns the appropriate behavior for the new stage they are entering

Incorporation Stage

The last phase, incorporation, takes place when the participant is formally admitted into the new role.

Various Rites of Passage• Baptism (from the Greek noun baptisma; itself derived from baptismos, is

a Christian rite of admission, almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also a particular church tradition. Baptism has been called a sacrament and an ordinance of Jesus Christ.

• Confirmation is a rite of initiation in Christian churches, normally carried out through anointing and/or the laying on of hands and prayer for the purpose of bestowing the Gift of the Holy Spirit. Confirmation is not practiced in Baptist, Anabaptist, and other groups that teach believer's baptism.

• Bar Mitzvah is Jewish coming of age ritual. Bar "בר" is a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic word meaning son, in Hebrew it's Ben "בן". Bat "בת" is Hebrew for girl, and Mitzvah "מצוה" is a commandment and a law. According to Jewish law, when Jewish boys become 13, they become responsible for their actions and become a Bar Mitzvah .

Rites of Passage Gone Wrong

• Separation – fatherless homes; spiritual disconnect

• Transition – Street organizations / negative peers; negative media stereotypes

• Incorporation – mass incarceration / death

The revolution won’t be televised……but it could be digitized

Take time to understand how the media impacts your child, and how your child expresses their feelings via technology mediums—texting, sexting, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Input affects output

Changing Landscape/Generational Differences

Friendship (social media/boundaries)

Conflict Resolution (values/social media/survival)

Human Sexuality - (information sources)

Financial Education (never too late or early)

Music/TV/Technology (what are we modeling)

Mentoring Programs/Initiatives have to be on MacAfee Mode

• Prevent system failure by thinking about program sustainability

• Building our network through collaboration

• Provide safety tools and resources to restore the system

National Mentoring Month 2014

Mentor Sunday Service

Twitter Chat

FB/Instagram posts on “Thank Your Mentor Day” (engage corporate and faith leaders) – 1/16/14

Attend the National Mentoring Summit in Arlington, VA

Local and national male celebrity engagement

Contact InfoStephen Powell, Executive Director

Mentoring USA5 Hanover Square

17th FloorNew York, NY 10004

212-400-8294spowell@mentoringusa.orgTwitter: @MrMentorSteve