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National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk

The National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk (NDTAC)

National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk

Mentoring

Related Information


 

The Aftercare for Indiana Through Mentoring Program

By Adam Segal

NDTAC has dedicated September to the topic of mentoring. As emphasized in this month’s Technical Issue Brief, a mentor can play an extremely positive role in the life of a youth who is neglected or delinquent. Many different mentoring programs exist nationally for at-risk youth; however, there are a limited number of programs specifically designed for youth who are delinquent or at high risk of delinquency. Given research on the positive effects of mentoring relationships, combined with the shortage of mentoring programs for N or D youth, the need for mentoring programs for meeting the needs of the N or D population is critical.

To bring attention to the importance of mentoring, NDTAC is highlighting Aftercare for Indiana through Mentoring (AIM), an example of a mentoring program specifically targeted at delinquent youth. AIM is also featured in NDTAC’s Mentoring Toolkit.1

A Brief History of AIM
During the summer of 1995, AIM executive director Roger Jarjoura was teaching a service learning course on juvenile justice at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). As part of the coursework, his students were required to work with juvenile offenders at the Indiana Boys’ School. Realizing that too many of these young offenders returned to the Indiana Boys’ School after release, Mr. Jarjoura set about establishing a program for college students to act as mentors to help facilitate juvenile reentry. By 2000, Mr. Jarjoura had expanded AIM into all nine of Indiana’s juvenile correctional facilities and received funding from AmeriCorps. Today, the program has expanded across the entire State of Indiana, and new mentoring reentry initiatives modeled after AIM will open this year in Arkansas and Alaska.

AIM’s Mission Statement

To support Indiana’s incarcerated youth in making the transition from corrections to community through healthy relationships with adult mentors. AIM is a diverse team of dedicated AmeriCorps members and adult volunteers. As mentors, we provide reentry support to incarcerated youths returning to communities throughout Indiana. We provide effective role models that target unique needs of these youths, inspiring purpose, motivation and direction for as long as the youths are receptive to our help. With a focus on life skills, we steer the youths toward success by engaging community resources and service providers. We inspire the youths to pursue successful and productive futures where they reach their potential, through self-development and the utilization of community resources.

AIM’s Mission
AIM’s mission is twofold in scope: to facilitate positive mentoring relationships and to connect high-risk youth with preexisting supports in their community upon reentry.

Returning Home
Upon release from a correctional facility, most youth return to a very similar environment from which they left at the time of arrest, including the same home, neighborhood, peers, issues, and pressures. This environment often lacks the presence of a positive adult role model. AIM believes that mentors can fill this void and make a significant difference for incarcerated youth and the community through mentoring relationships.

Additionally, AIM believes that many of the community supports youth need upon reentry (e.g., substance abuse programs, job centers, etc.) already exist in the community, but are not made readily accessible to transitioning youth. Thus, AIM also works to assess the needs of juvenile offenders who will soon be released from facilities throughout Indiana, and brings these youth together with community agencies that can effectively meet their needs. Rather than duplicating services, AIM works to connect existing programs in the community with the transitioning youth who need support to be successful. AIM considers these connections to be critical elements to transitioning youth.

What an Incarcerated Youth Involved in AIM Can Expect:2

  1. AIM provides youth with written correspondence about the services it can provide upon their release, inviting any questions or requests for specific connections with other community-based services.
  2. AIM reaches out to the youths’ families to educate them about the services AIM can provide.
  3. Mentors are assigned to a youth as early as possible, months before a youth is to be paroled. AIM prefers mentors meet with youth in the facility.
  4. AIM invites youth still incarcerated to visit the AIM Support Center in the region where the youth will be living upon release, and to go through a 4-hour orientation program. AIM arranges these visits. Parents are also offered an orientation program.
  5. When youth take a temporary leave during their transition phase of incarceration, AIM requires them to visit the AIM Support Center for an intake interview or to meet with their mentor. Temporary leave for a youth is time in the community away from a facility while that youth is still incarcerated.
  6. At the point of release, AIM finds it critical that youth have official copies of their birth certificates and social security cards. Without these items in hand, their ability to obtain legal identification, to secure enrollment in an educational program, or to secure employment may be delayed for 2 or more weeks.
  7. AIM strongly encourages youth to have a reentry plan (that was developed at least in part with AIM’s input) in place prior to their release. AIM requires their mentors also to have access to the plan so they may understand the ways they can best assist youth.

The Mentor’s Role
Once a youth has voluntarily signed up for the AIM mentoring program in a facility, he or she will be assigned to a team of mentors. This mentoring team is responsible for a group of incarcerated youth and must visit them during incarceration. By using the team approach, the hope is that relationships will develop between pairs of youth and mentors, and relationships will continue as youth transition back into the community. Accordingly, AIM asks a commitment of at least 1 year from its mentors. Before a youth leaves a facility, a specific mentor will be arranged to work one-on-one with him or her upon release; AIM tries to match youth with mentors from the same home community. Once in the community, AIM staff and mentors serve as brokers for services for transitioning youth by making referrals to appropriate community organizations. While AIM has no set length for their mentoring relationships, many mentor–mentee relationships have continued on an informal basis after they have officially completed the AIM program.

Interested in finding out more about AIM? Attend NDTAC’s October 2006 Webinar (details TBD). Additional information on AIM can be found on the program’s Web site.3

Endnotes

1. NDTAC does not evaluate or endorse programs; this article provides an example of one mentoring program in existence.
2. The seven expectations are taken from the AIM program.
3. Parts of this article were taken from AIM’s program manual and interviews with Executive Director Roger Jarjoura.

Published September 2006

 

 

The Mentoring Toolkit: Resources for Developing Programs for Incarcerated Youth
NDTAC’s Mentoring Toolkit provides a general overview of mentoring research, insight into the special needs of incarcerated youth, and practical strategies for designing mentoring programs to meet those needs.

NDTAC Technical Issue Brief: Mentoring Youth Who Are Delinquent or High Risk
This Technical Issue Brief explores the current state of research on mentoring programs for youth currently in or at risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system and offers several ways in which programs have adapted mentoring best practices to successfully work with this unique population.

 

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The content of this Web site does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. The programs/models featured on this site have not been evaluated by NDTAC. The site is meant to serve as a tool and to provide examples of work being done in the field. This Web site was created and is maintained by American Institutes for Research (AIR) through funding from the U.S. Department of Education, contract no. ED-04-CO-0025/0006.
For more information, send an e-mail to NDTAC@air.org.