MENTORING PROGRAMS

COMMUNITY-BASED

The local Big Brothers Big Sisters program was established in 1980, when it matched 7 children from our community with adult volunteers as mentors, through what is now known as the Traditional Mentoring Match or Community-Based program. During that first year volunteers enrolled in the program, mentored the children primarily involved in other P.E A.C.E. programs. Today, still under the auspices of P.E.A.C.E. Inc. there are over 100 children matched with an adult volunteer through this program in Syracuse and Onondaga County. During 2010, 144 adult mentors in the Traditional Program devoted 9,640 hours of one-to-one time spent with their Littles!

With assistance from different departments throughout P.E.A.C.E. Inc. and overview presentations in the community, the BBBS staff has been able to recruit adult volunteers to match them with children from the waiting/applicant list. Currently there are over 100 children waiting to be matched with a Big Brother or Big Sister. We have a "BIG NEED" for adult male volunteers, since the largest percentage of waiting children are boys.

Children on our waiting list are invited to participate in a number of different Big Brothers Big Sisters activities throughout the year while they are waiting to be matched. Furthermore, we actively seek adult mentor-for-a-day volunteers to match to a youth for the duration of the staff supervised activity or event as a way to retain these childrens' interest in the program and gently introduce new volunteers to the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring experience.

SCHOOL-BASED

In 1999, Big Brothers Big Sisters started the School-Based Mentoring Program in order to provide mentoring services to more children in the community. We started by matching 12 children from Seymour Elementary with 22 high school students from Bishop Ludden High School.

Today, the School-Based Mentoring Program has expanded to 8 different elementary schools in Onondaga County and 3 in Oswego County. In 2010, 270 high school and college Bigs donated 2,169.5 hours mentoring 236 school-based Littles! These partnerships include the following schools:

Porter Magnet & Bishop Ludden High School (Mondays)
LeMoyne Elementary School & LeMoyne College (Tuesdays)
Seymour Magnet & Nottingham High School (Tuesdays)
Delaware Academy & Fowler High School (Wednesdays)
Bellevue Elementary & Bishop Ludden High School (Wednesdays)
Roberts K-8 & Corcoran High School (Thursdays)
Roxboro Road Elementary & Cicero North Syracuse High School (Thursdays)
Dr. King Magnet & Syracuse University (Fridays)
Paul V. Moore High School students in Central Square are mentoring at the following elementary schools: Central Square Intermediate, A.A. Cole Elementary, Cleveland Elementary

This type of program, School-Based Mentoring, is a highly effective method to further the mission of youth development and education in America. The Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) School-Based Mentoring Study, funded by a grant from the UPS Foundation, reported that school mentors have a positive, measurable effect on children.

According to the teachers who referred “Littles” to the BBBS School-Mentors Study:

64% developed a more positive attitude towards school;
58% achieved higher grades in social studies, languages and math;
60% improved relationships with adults;
56% improved relationship with peers;
55% were better able to express their feelings;
64% developed higher levels of self-confidence; and,
62% were more likely to trust their teachers.

In addition, 77% of the teachers, parents and volunteers involved in the study, reported increases in the students’ self-confidence.

This type of mentoring provided through the School-Based Program has proven to be a very effective tool for teachers to gauge the pupil’s academic and social skills improvements. More and more children are asking their teachers and counselors to consider them for this program which gives the teachers “a way to provide yet another incentive to the student."