Youth Mentoring Legislative Priorities for Massachusetts

Massachusetts Mentoring Agenda

Based in Boston,Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) is fueling the movement to expandquality mentoringfor youth to meet the needs of communities across Massachusetts. MMP serves more than 200 mentoring programsstatewide supporting 30,000 youth in mentoring relationships. MMP works with mentoring programs to assess programmatic needs and organizational capacity, as well as to provide customized strategies that empower youth, families, and communities. Our program network includes schools, religious organizations, community non-profits, and workplaces, serving youth 5 to 24-years-old.

Mass Mentoring promotes legislative priorities on the federal level, in collaboration withMENTOR, the national mentoring partnership, which will help youth mentoring agencies in Massachusetts run high-quality programs that serve more young people. As members of the Massachusetts delegation, we hope you will support these priorities as well.

  1. Advocate for policies and funding approaches that expand quality mentoring in Massachusetts. About 100,000 youth in Massachusetts need mentors, but only 30,000 are in formal mentoring relationships. In partnership with Congress, we can increase this number by raising awareness about mentoring as an effective strategy to support academic achievement, career readiness, and address youth violence, as well as drive more financial resources to mentoring programs in the Commonwealth.
  1. Support funding for Juvenile Mentoring grants in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency PreventionWe ask Congress to provide: $100 million for youth mentoring grants to be distributed to local, regional and national mentoring programs through a fair, open, transparent and competitive process.
  1. Co-sponsor the Child Protection Improvements Act. Soon to be reintroduced by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Mike Rogers (R-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI), as well as Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), this bill will allow youth-serving organizations access to nationwide FBI fingerprint searches in a timely and affordable manner. It is based on the successful PROTECT Act pilot. More than 100,000 background checks were performed during the pilot, and 6.1 percent of potential volunteers had criminal records of concern- including serious offenses like rape, murder and child sexual abuse. And, 41 percent of those with negative results had criminal records from a state other than where they were applying. This is a critical issue for Massachusetts in particular, as many programs rely heavily on college student mentors who often come from other states.
  1. Support the inclusion of mentoring in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). We want to improve the availability and quality of federal grant support for mentoring and tie it more closely with the important role mentors play in improving a young person’s academic standing and learning environment. In Massachusetts, 45% of mentoring programs function within schools, with 40% of programs both in and out of school focusing on improving academic achievement for youth.
  1. Become a champion for youth mentoring. The mentoring movement needs leaders and champions in Congress to be able to close the mentoring gap. Express your support and belief in mentoring:
  • Join the bipartisan House Mentoring Caucus (co-chaired by Reps. Davis, McCollum and Rogers).
  • Support commemorations of National Mentoring Month each January.