Finding Their Joy: Reaching Beyond 1:1 Mentoring to Support Youth Mental Health

As we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month in 2021, and reflect back on over a year of living through a pandemic, it is clear that our youth are nothing short of resilient. But we need to do more for them. According to Mental Health America’s report, “The State of Mental Health in America 2021”, youth depression and mental health is worsening. People across the country who are screened for moderate to severe mental health conditions struggle the most with feelings of loneliness and isolation.

At Compeer, we seek to improve mental health by providing nonclinical mentoring support to youth living with a diagnosed mental health condition. We are an international nonprofit organization that is headquartered in Buffalo, New York, with affiliate locations across the US, Australia, London England and Montreal Canada. With 1 in 5 youth living with a mental health condition, we strongly believe in the healing power of friendship, and that the presence of just one caring friend can be life changing for someone striving for mental wellness.

In January of 2021, almost a year into the pandemic, we had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the National Mentoring Summit. We shared insights on how we could address our never-ending list of youth waiting to be served by a mentor through providing social activities. What we discovered through our three-year learning process, was that not only could we serve more youth, but we could have just as meaningful of an impact, if not more, on their mental health. We are excited to share with you how we achieved this!

Traditionally our service is offered as a 1:1 model, but likely similar to many of you, it was not acceptable to us to have so many youths on our wait list who were struggling with chronic loneliness. We knew we needed a way to support those who were waiting for simple friendship and connection. As a team, we considered our resources and began to strategize.

Compeer has historically offered activities for their youth, but these were relatively unstructured. Despite this, we saw some friendships start to develop, and heard directly from our youth that being around their peers with similar experiences was beneficial to their mental health. They began to express comfort knowing that while they might not “fit in” at school, or have many friends, when they attend a Compeer activity, they can be themselves with no judgment, and just have fun! We knew we were onto something. We felt that activities should not just be a small bonus of being matched with a Compeer mentor, but a stand-alone program with intention and data behind it. Our youth, and their household members who attended with them, even began to improve their relationships with each other! They told us that Compeer activities provided a safe space and judgement-free zone. We began to build our communication with youth and families in several ways, including using an interactive monthly newsletter and utilizing texting platforms to invite them to our activities, whether the youth were matched or waiting.

We have a small team here at Compeer of Greater Buffalo, so right away, our capacity issue presented an opportunity. By having more activities and more consistency, we were able to then reach out to schools and organizations in the community and build partnerships. We reached out to people interested in volunteering but couldn’t meet the traditional 1:1 year-long requirement. They were excited to have another opportunity to get involved and make an impact on youth mental health, by simply helping out at group activities! We recognized that several local colleges were offering service-learning projects for their students, and we were able to tap into this resource and have them host a variety of different activities. This thereby exposed community members to Compeer services, and since we have been able to have a pool of consistent activity volunteers and service-learning classes, this has alleviated some of the workload required of staff on our relatively small team. We saw that we could serve more youth and make a maximum impact with a small (but mighty) team!

No one could have predicted a pandemic would reach us but having this structure in place and having these connections through activities, when we needed to transition into virtual and drive-up events, the adjustment was very quick and smooth! But don’t just take our word for it… we have proof.

We implemented surveys after each activity to ask about whether they were working and supporting our youth. We solicited their direct feedback on whether they met a friend, felt less lonely, and what activities they wanted to see next. Some unanticipated benefits of providing these social activities included some activity volunteers becoming 1:1 mentors to youth on our wait list.

We found that with this programming, we got to know the youth we serve better, so that we could make a better quality match for them. We were able to get specific funding for youth activities through local private foundations. Funders were able to come in and see their donations at work first hand!

Other ways we have worked to serve more youth include Client Orientation. Every youth and parent/guardian attends one of our monthly orientation events, held either in person or virtually. This trauma-informed approach introduces them to all of Compeer’s services, and encourages them to explore more than just 1:1 mentoring. Youth are engaged right from the beginning of being introduced to Compeer. We launched a Youth Advisory Board composed of matched and unmatched youth, to give unmatched youth a voice in other ways they can be empowered. These youth welcome new youth to Compeer, and help at social activities. We joined our local county summer youth employment program and hired our own youth clients. We were able to provide a trauma-informed, safe work environment for some of our clients to enjoy their first-ever work experience!

And so our journey continues… we will continue to expand our services to reach more youth and families, both before and after they are in a 1:1 match. It has been a three- year journey of increasing success and we are excited to share what we have found works best. Not only knowing, but seeing the impact it has had on our young people’s mental health has been nothing short of inspiring. We hope this gives you some guidance and inspiration to expand your own reach to youth in your mentoring programs!

To learn more about Compeer as an international organization, or to inquire about launching an affiliate site, please visit www.compeer.org or www.compeerbuffalo.org

Facebook: @compeerbuffalo or @compeerinternational

Instagram: @compeerbuffalo or @compeerfriends