Girls Breaking Chains Inc. Builds Solid Foundation for their Mentoring Program with Guidance from MENTOR Georgia

Girls Breaking Chains Inc. is a Christian nonprofit organization supporting young girls impacted by parental incarceration. Their organization is founded on the belief that every girl deserves the opportunity to thrive, regardless of her circumstances. Through mentorship, support groups, and scholarships, they provide supportive services to girls ages 10-17 to overcome the pain of being separated from an incarcerated parent. 

The founder, Tynecia Estrada, has 25 years of lived experience with an incarcerated parent.  She understands the impact associated with a parent who is in jail. Fortunately for her, she had a supportive family and a group of mentors who helped guide her through the difficult times she faced. Tynecia founded Girls Breaking Chains Inc. to provide the same support to girls living through similar experiences.

The variety of programs and services her program offers, include:

• One-on-one and group mentorship with caring adults who can provide guidance and support
• Support groups where girls can share their experiences and connect with others who understand what they are going through
• Scholarships to help girls attend college or vocational school
• Scholarships for mental health therapy

Tynecia Estrada requested no-cost technical assistance (TA) to align her organization’s programs with the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring standards. Maryellen Gomes of MENTOR Georgia assisted Tynecia in creating a solid foundation that would set her program up for success and longevity within the community. Motivated by Tynecia and her team’s clear vision and willingness to learn, Maryellen was thrilled to aid them with their goal. Collaborating in a hybrid format through video calls , in-person training, and group training with Girls Breaking Chains board members and volunteers, Maryellen was able to help the organization develop policies, procedures, and trainings. Throughout Tynecia’s TA experience, she expressed the following gratitude:

“The TA experience was incredibly beneficial for our organization. Our TA provided us with the tools, resources, and guidance to build a successful mentoring program. In addition to Maryellen’s expertise in mentoring, our TA Provider was also a great listener and collaborator. She took the time to understand our unique needs and challenges, and she worked with us to develop a program that was tailored to our specific goals. She was also a great advocate for our organization, and she helped us to build relationships with other organizations.”

Tynecia and Maryellen truly stuck to the mantra “to go deep before they went wide,” building the strong foundation first, understanding that “what looks and sounds good may not be good for you.” By keeping this thought at the forefront throughout the process, Maryellen and Tynecia ensured everything they did aligned with the goal and mission of the Girls Breaking Chains program. They used this mindset to determine which partnerships and processes would work best to support the program’s goal. Now, Girls Breaking Chains offers a comprehensive training program for their mentors, and all of their mentors have completed background checks while undergoing trauma-informed training to be better equipped to support their mentees’ needs. All these new implementations in their program stemmed from the support of NMRC TA. As Tynecia reflects on her TA experience, she states, “We are so grateful for the support of our TA Provider. She has truly been a blessing to our organization, and we are confident that our mentoring program will thrive thanks to her guidance.”

MENTOR partners with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to deliver the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) to the mentoring field. In addition to convening a Research Board which develops evidence-based reviews about mentoring topics, and offering a comprehensive mentoring resource center website, the NMRC provides mentoring programs nationwide with the opportunity to request and receive no-cost technical assistance to help them more deeply incorporate evidence-based practices into their programming. Once a mentoring program requests technical assistance, their request is assigned to a local or regional technical assistance provider within MENTOR’s network of state and local affiliates and TA providers. New and emerging mentoring programs may benefit from technical assistance to help them design and implement programs that meet quality standards as outlined in the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring ™, while existing or established programs may utilize TA to improve operations, assess impact, or adapt their program to changing or emerging community needs.