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City Platform Section II, Step 13:
"Establish or support a mentoring initiative that connects young people to caring adults, recruiting volunteers from municipal agencies, local businesses, faith communities, fraternal organizations, and civic groups."
Teens with meaningful mentor relationships are significantly more likely to raise their goals, improve their relationships with peers and family members, get better grades, and avoid detrimental behaviors, such as using drugs and alcohol, skipping class, or fighting.
City officials can help promote mentoring by creating a new program to match mentors to youth, using their "bully pulpit" to encourage participation, and setting an example - as an individual and/or as an employer - that it is worth carving out time to mentor young people in the community.
City Examples
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Recognizing the positive impact that mentors can have on outcomes for young people, Mayor Rick Baker has encouraged individuals throughout the community to mentor in St. Petersburg's public schools. To back this up, Mayor Baker instituted a new administrative policy allowing city employees to take up to one hour of paid leave per week to mentor in the schools, with 15 minutes of travel before and after these visits.
The mayor has also issued a "Cabinet Challenge" to his cabinet members, holding monthly contests aimed at increasing city employees mentoring in the schools. Currently, more than 160 city employees volunteer as mentors.
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Groton, Conn.
In addition to officially proclaiming January as National Mentoring Month, Groton Mayor Harry Watson also tries to lead by example, motivating others to mentor young people through his own lifelong commitment.
Mayor Watson has counseled junior high students at his church camp for 25 years, has coached little league, soccer, and basketball in Groton for nearly a decade, and most recently, has begun mentoring a fourth-grader at a local elementary school through the Groton Public Schools (GPS) Mentoring Program.
A staff member from the Groton Department of Human Services serves on the Steering Committee as the mentor interviewer for the GPS Mentoring program. Mayor Watson has received an award for his community's coordination of this multi-faceted mentoring program with Pfizer, UConn Avery Point, and Electric Boat.
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Resources
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