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ABOUT THIS INITIATIVE 

NYC Service partners with City agencies, including the Department for Youth and Community Development (DYCD), the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE), the Young Men’s Initiative, and the Center for Youth Employment, to engage volunteers in meaningful, recurring mentor relationships to enhance the social emotional support of our City’s youth. Working with a City agency and nonprofit coalition, NYC Service will increase the number and quality of mentoring opportunities for K-12 youth in the City.

 

PARTNERS:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC
Since 1904, our mission has been to give all children in New York City who face adversity an opportunity to experience a strong, enduring professionally supported one-to-one mentoring relationship with adults that will help change their lives for the better. 
 
As the nation’s founding and NYC’s largest mentoring organization, our program is simple: by meeting just twice a month on their own schedules in the community, our volunteers are able to make a positive, often life-long impact on a child in need. We match volunteers over the age of 21 with children between 7-17 in all 5 boroughs of New York City.
 
Contact
Name: Diego Romero
Title: Director of Community Outreach 
Work Phone: (646) 274-6065
Email Address: dromero@bigsnyc.org 
 
 
Harlem RBI
Harlem RBI provides inner-city youth with opportunities to Play, Learn and Grow. We use the power of teams to coach, teach and inspire youth to recognize their potential and realize their dreams. Harlem RBI is looking for coaches for our youth in technical skills, team-building and personal development. 
 
Coaches will lead practices, facilitate team meetings, attend professional development trainings and provide a positive, team-based environment focused on teaching baseball, softball and life skills. Time spent with our youth includes attending one weeknight practice and one weekend game each week during the season.
 
Contact
Name: Lauren Klein
Title: Director of Recruitment and Selection
Work Phone: 646-518-0713
Email Address: lklein@harlemrbi.org
 
 
Free Arts NYC
Free Arts NYC provides underserved children and families with a unique combination of educational arts and mentoring programs that help them to foster the self-confidence and resiliency needed to realize their fullest potential.
 
Arts Mentoring Program: Volunteer team, facilitated by professional staff, lead small groups of youth ages 6-13 through a semester-long arts curriculum. Through weekly sessions, you’ll build positive, trusting relationships with children, encouraging them to learn new ways to communicate and express themselves through art-making. 
 
Parents and Children Together with Art: Volunteer teams, facilitated by professional staff, guide groups of families with children ages 3+ through a collaborative art-making experience. In progressive sessions intended to foster a family “design-team” ethic, you’ll support families as they build problem-solving and communication skills. 
 
Contact
Name: Stephanie Barreto-Lastra
Title: Volunteer Manager
Work Phone: 212-974-9092
 
 
Let's Get Ready
Let's Get Ready provides low-income high school students with free SAT preparation, admissions counseling and other support services needed to gain admission to and graduate from college. Trained college student volunteers deliver these services and offer encouragement, inspiration and confidence.
 
LGR provides participants with free SAT and college preparation by matching them with college student volunteers (“Coaches”) who act as tutors and mentors.  LGR includes SAT preparation (in small groups of about five students per coach) college admissions guidance and financial aid workshops (including college tours and help with applications), and intensive on-going mentoring, resources and support.  On average, LGR students have increased their SAT scores by 115 points and 92% of participants have gone directly to college after high school.  
 
Let’s Get Ready seeks mentors to work with students in a number of workshops (College Application Day, Career Workshops, etc.).  There is a particular need for college student “Coaches” in NYC to provide SAT tutoring, college application guidance and mentoring.  Coaches serve one night/week in individual program sites operating for nine weeks in the spring, summer or fall. More information on Coaching here: http://www.letsgetready.org/GetStarted/Coaches/
 
Contact
Name:  Brian Dever
Title: Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic 
Work Phone: 646-808-2761
Email Address: bdever@letsgetready.org
 
 
Mentor New York
Mentor New York fuels quality mentoring relationships that bring a caring adult together with children in need through safe, effective mentoring programs throughout New York State.
 
Mentor New York works with over 400 mentoring programs, serving 57,000 young people.  Mentoring programs meet at all times of the week and each program is a little different.  Potential volunteers have a wide range of options.
 
Contact
Name: Brenda Jimenez
Title: Director of Operations and Growth Strategies
Work Phone: 212-953-0945
Email Address: bjimenez@mentorkids.org
 
 
New York City Mentoring Program
NYCMP is an after school initiative of the New York City Department of Education that has connected tens of thousands of high school students with volunteer mentors from local businesses, organizations, or associations to help youth navigate educational, social, and professional growth. Once coursework is done, students leave school and meet their mentors at their work sites or other planned locations throughout New York City. During mentoring sessions, mentors help mentees engage in career exploration, learn about goal setting, plan for college enrollment and enjoy the City’s cultural resources.
 
NYCMP will pair your business, association, or organization with a public high school across New York City. Only groups of at least 15 or more volunteers, all from the same business or organization, are accepted into the program.
 
Contact
Name: Lori A. Mastromauro
Title: Program Director
Work Phone: 212.374.5195
Email Address: lmastro@schools.nyc.gov
 
 
South Bronx United
South Bronx United uses soccer as a tool for social change. South Bronx United aims to help youth build character, teamwork, and leadership so that they can succeed in high school, college, careers, their community and beyond. South Bronx United strives to promote educational achievement, health and wellness, and character development through activities on and off the soccer field and to unite a diverse group of individuals and an incredibly diverse community toward common positive goals.
 
College Prep Mentor:  Mentors work 1-2 high school seniors, one evening a week, to help them through the college application process and meeting graduation requirements.  College Prep Mentors promote the importance of education and serve as positive role models in the youths' lives.
 
Academic Coach: Academic Coaches work with small groups of boys and girls in the South Bronx United Youth Development Program to provide homework help and support youth in reaching their grade level in math and English. Tutors work with the same group week to week, providing an opportunity to build relationships with the kids and serve as a positive adult role models.
 
Team Mentor & Coach:  Team mentors work with youth at academic programs (after school tutoring or college prep) as well as at soccer trainings and games. Team mentors serve as one of the first points of contact for issues or questions concerning a youth.
 
Contact
Name: Carlos Bhanji
Title: Director of Operations
Work Phone: 718-404-9281
 
 
Student Sponsor Partners
Student Sponsor Partners addresses the high school dropout crisis in New York City by providing low-income students with a high school education. All SSP students are paired with sponsors who offer financial support and mentors who offer one-to-one mentoring, thus making a meaningful impact on their lives.
 
Mentors donate their time to provide one-to-one mentor support to their student through four years of high school. Mentors are paired with a student of their same gender and are asked to meet with the student 3 to 6 times a year and maintain monthly contact via phone or email.
 
Contact
Name: Ebony Wiggins 
Title: Program Associate 
Work Phone: 212-986-9575 ext. 117
Email Address: ewiggins@sspnyc.org
 
 
Young Men’s Initiative
Launched in January 2012, DYCD’s Cornerstone Mentoring program engages youth in grades five through nine to help them transition into middle and high school and become involved in their communities. Participants are provided with opportunities to learn life skills while developing positive relationships with caring adults outside their families. 
 
Each of the 25 programs offers participants the chance to engage in structured group mentoring with mentors, attend outings that promote bonding and exploration of themes around success and leadership, and to complete service activities that benefit their local communities. Cornerstone Mentoring seeks to achieve this by focusing on:
  • Promoting positive changes in youth attitudes towards self, others, and their futures;
  • Adjusting successfully to new school environments;
  • Helping youth cultivate an ethic of service; and
  • Developing youth leadership skills
Contact
Name: Malave-Baez
Title: Project Manager, Service Learning
Work Phone: 646-343-6468
 
 
MENTORING RESOURCE SITES
 
The National Mentoring Partnership has over 160 tools posted on their website, including tools to design and plan a mentoring program. As part of the Elements of Effective Practice Toolkit, the site includes planning calendars, sample job descriptions for program staff, information about e-mentoring, and budget planning forms. The National Mentoring Partnership also has key evaluation tools posted, including tips to designing or choosing an evaluation survey, pre- and post-surveys, and mentor/mentee evaluation forms. Find them all here.
 
Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring has released a toolkit: How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice, which is available for download on their website or here. 
 
TRAINING STAFF AND MENTORS
 
The National Mentoring Partnership released a paper Research in Action: Program Staff in Youth Mentoring Programs: Qualifications, Training, and Retention.
 
The National Mentoring Partnership also recently released an article about the ethics of mentoring, and how to train your mentors in ethical practice.
 
RESEARCH
 
The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released the 2011 Kids Count Data Book, providing an overview of children’s issues nation-wide as well as state-by-state rankings.
 
The Wallace Foundation has released an evaluation of after-school mentoring, specifically an apprentice-based program called After School Matters, and the effect it can have on youth.
 
 
The Coalition for Juvenile Justice released Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development.