Mentoring Services Volunteer Opportunities

The agency provides volunteer opportunities for adults, age 18 and older, who are interested in mentoring youth. There are no geographic restrictions.

The program actively recruits adult volunteers in the spring and summer to work with at-risk youth in a team mentorship role. Teams are formed to begin in the Fall at the beginning of the school year. The commitment is to meet every week with the team for 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon. In addition, the volunteer team meets together separately, for a debriefing session; and volunteers are expected to participate in three or four extra activities during the year. There is a Saturday orientation session that provides training for the volunteers.

The program, called "TeamWorks" is a unique team mentoring program in which youth are matched with a college-age volunteer, a teacher, and a working adult volunteer from the community. Each team works with ten to twelve young people; the teams meet weekly for one and one-half hours at the school site. Structured activities include team building, leadership development, and community service. The regular meetings help the youth develop a sense of trust and a relationship with their adult team leaders. Leadership is developed through listening skills, shared facilitation of meetings, and group work on issues such as conflict, criticism and failure. Program participants create their own community service programs, which may include graffiti removal, feeding the homeless or visiting the elderly. The groups also participate in field trips and activity days.