Program Overview and Background
MENTOR RI’s Juvenile Justice initiative was created to utilize multiple avenues of mentoring to help youth involved in the juvenile justice system build positive adult relationships, reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors. This initiative also works with youth that have appeared before a Juvenile Hearing Board, involved in Family or Truancy court as well as youth involved with the Dept. of Children and Families.
Program Services
Through the Juvenile Justice Initiative, MENTOR RI will coordinate 1:1 mentoring and group mentoring with additional program options of job readiness and leadership skill building through its partnerships in the initiative with Foster Forward and Youth-In-Action.
Target Population
The Juvenile Justice Initiative will serve youth between the ages of 12-17 diverted to specialty courts, such as truancy or family court. The Initiative will serve the 400+ youth referred to local juvenile hearing boards as well as 500 youth on probation in RI, particularly the 35% of the youth identified by DCYF as “low risk” and who could benefit from community programming to avoid future court engagement.
Grant Year: 2021
Grant Category: Category 2 — Multistate Mentoring Programs
TA at a glance:
As Rhode Island’s only approved NMRC TA provider, MENTOR Rhode Island provides youth serving organizations interested in starting a mentoring program, or those organizations looking to improve/advance an existing mentoring program, with the tools they need to be successful.
MENTOR Rhode Island employs the recognized best practices in the field, The Elements of Effective Practice for MentoringTM as the basis for all its technical assistance work and can provide expert guidance when it comes to program design, recruiting, screening, training, matching, monitoring & support, closure, and evaluation.
Services as an Affiliate of MENTOR National
MENTOR Rhode Island: The RI Mentoring Partnership, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit with more than 30-years’ experience in the youth mentoring field. We are dedicated to the expansion of quality mentoring services for youth by working with them directly, connecting them to mentoring opportunities, and sharing our expertise in the best practices in mentoring with others who strive to inspire and empower them.
We are Rhode Island’s only approved training and technical assistance provider for the National Mentoring Resource Center and offer volunteer referral services, statewide marketing campaigns and advocacy for mentoring. As the state’s mentoring expert, we connect, inspire, and empower mentors, mentees and mentoring programs across the state.