The Governor's Prevention Partnership

Issue No. 7, May 2014
Editor: Dr. Susan G. Weinberger
In This Issue
Corporate Honor Roll Breakfast a Success
Bullying, Cyber-Bullying and the Role of Mentoring Coordinators
Program Feature of the Month: Norwalk Mentor Program
Dr. Mentor's Corner
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Jill K. Spineti
 
Dear Friends:

I was very inspired to meet Robert Clancy, our keynote speaker at the Corporate Mentoring Honor Roll breakfast on April 30, and to hear his stories about the impact of volunteerism, which he calls "transcendental encounters with kindred spirits."  

 

I learned that Robert has committed his life to assisting others, whether volunteering, helping them to succeed or even just offering a friendly smile, and I know the world is a richer place because of Robert and each and every one of our mentors who volunteer their time each week!

 

He remarked that he heard several of our speakers at the breakfast mention LOVE, and his acronym is Leadership Opportunity Volunteerism Enthusiasm-which perfectly describes the job description of a mentoring program director!    

 

Thank you for your LOVE and all you do to advance quality-based mentoring in Connecticut!

 

Sincerely,

 

 
Jill Spineti, President & CEO 
The Governor's Prevention Partnership
Corporate Mentoring Honor Roll Breakfast a Success
 

The annual Corporate Mentoring Honor Roll Breakfast took place on April 30, 2014 at the Sheraton Rocky Hill. More than one hundred guests from the corporate and education sectors enjoyed the event entitled A Look Ahead: Mentoring in Connecticut. This was one of a year long celebration commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Governor's 

Prevention Partnership. The breakfast was sponsored through the generosity of COMCAST and NBC Connecticut. 

Charlene Russell-Tucker; Mayor Toni Harp; Kristen Roberts, Comcast; Mary McLaughlin, Comcast and co-chair, The Governor's Prevention Partnership (GPP); Hall of Fame inductee Mike Mascaro, Comcast; Roland Harmon, GPP

Mayor Toni Harp spoke eloquently and emotionally to those in attendance, providing examples of the power of mentoring and efforts in New Haven to develop mentoring initiatives to eliminate youth violence, gangs and improve the lives of young people. Harp is New Haven's first female Mayor and has a long history of caring about youth, their success in school and in life and works to address the undeniable disparity in educational access and performance.

 

Charlene Russell-Tucker, Chief Operating Officer, CT State Department of Education cited 64,000 reasons why mentoring is critical for our youth. She stated that 4,000 youth are disengaged and drop out of high school in Connecticut each year and 60,000 students are chronically absent from school.  

 

The CT Mentoring Partnership is fortunate to have both Mayor Harp and Russell-Tucker as advocates for mentoring in our state.

 

Two outstanding mentors were inducted into the 2014 Connecticut Mentoring Hall of Fame. Congratulations to these dedicated corporate mentors: 

 

Ben Jackson, Senior Financial & Reporting Manager, Beiersdorf, Inc.

Mike Mascaro, Director of Advanced Services, Comcast, Western New England Region  

 
Bullying, Cyber-bullying and the Role of Mentoring Coordinators
By Sarah Jones, Program Manager, Safe Schools and Communities

 

Youth are immersed in technology, from social interactions on gaming sites to school-based, interactive software for submitting work to teachers.   Youth have become adept at communicating in 140 characters or fewer.  Information is readily accessible and a small device that nearly everyone carries can open that world up in moments.  And in this rapidly changing environment, we are met almost daily with news stories about the impact of social media on our lives and culture, stories that are celebrations and expos�s, comedies and tragedies.  Perhaps the most tragic of these stories is the examples of cyber-bullying and electronic aggression.

 

Connecticut has not been immune to this epidemic.  On April 28, 2014 a student-written piece, A Gossip App Brought My High School to a Halt, appeared on The Cut on the NY Magazine website.  The piece details how the use of Yik Yak, an app where people can post short messages anonymously and they are broadcast in a limited geographic environment, shredded the self- esteem of students, caused significant disruption to the educational environment and brought a high school principal to a point of exasperation.

 

The Governor's Prevention Partnership has been working with area schools, districts and community partners to raise awareness of the impact these types of problems can have on school climate.  Perhaps more importantly, The Partnership has been at the forefront of working with districts and schools to develop school climates where this type of behavior is simply unacceptable.   Mentoring Program coordinators have an opportunity to help support the shift in school climate by providing mentors with the tools to educate mentees about the dangers of bullying and cyber-bullying in particular.  All of us can help to prevent harmful activity. Mentors can:

  1. Enter in to discussions with mentees about what to share and not to share on social media.
  2. Enter into discussions about peer pressure and why young people feel the need to engage in mean behavior. 
  3. Talk about the times when mentees realize when they might have played each of the roles in a bullying relationship - bystander, initiator and target.

The Partnership believes in and enters into collaborative working relationships with communities across the state to address issues of bullying and school climate.  As with other quality, evidence-based prevention programs, The Partnership believes that the key is to engage key stakeholders to implement sustainable and proven prevention strategies, particularly in a school setting.

 

Highlights is pleased to introduce you to Sarah Jones. She can assist you in providing individualized trainings to meet your mentoring program and community needs around bullying, cyber-bullying and school climate. Sarah can be reached at [email protected] or 860-523-8042 ext. 53.

 

(Editor's Note: Last week, my eleven year old grandson, Jakob, e-mailed me to ask my favorite quote or piece of advice for others. He said it was HW. Having no clue what HW stood for and since they are the initials of my Father-in-law, I requested a quick explanation of the two characters. HW means Homework, Nana!!!!. Am I the only one that did not know that?  I guess the youth today really can communicate with less than 140 characters! LOL)

 

HIGHLIGHTS PROGRAM FEATURE 
OF THE MONTH 
 
 
By the early 1980s, the Norwalk corporate community was already heavily involved in supporting every school in the district through a widely acclaimed Adopt-A-School Program. Companies "adopted" a particular school and provided many different offerings including Executives on Loan, used and new equipment, classroom speakers, awards and scholarships and writing of curriculum for teachers. It became readily apparent that while all of these wonderful donations were enhancing schools and young people, nevertheless teachers and principals wanted help in the area of human resources, translated to people. School staff reported time and time again that many youth sitting in their classrooms were unchallenged and unmotivated and most importantly, did not have anyone who cared about them. Thus the Norwalk Mentor Program (NMP), the oldest school-based mentoring program in the state of Connecticut and the nation, was born.

 

It should be noted that while Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) has helped youth reach their potential through one-to-one relationships since 1904, these programs were community-based in nature at the time. Corporate employees being released from work one hour a week to travel to their local school and mentor a youth was an entirely new phenomenon.

 

The Norwalk Mentor Program serves students who are in grades K-12 in the Norwalk schools. These students are matched with positive adult role models and meet for one hour, once a week at school, engaging in academic and/or social activities conducive to the school setting.  The program has more than 200 mentor/mentee matches in the 19 Norwalk public schools. 

 

Program activities throughout the year include: weekly mentoring sessions, 'welcome back' breakfasts for the mentors and mentees at the start of each school year, an annual 'thank you' event at Stepping Stones Museum to recognize all program participants in honor of National Mentoring Month, initial and ongoing trainings for mentors, and a scholarship program called the Norwalk Mentor Scholarship Fund. Every mentee who graduates from high school with their mentor at their side receives $2,000 upon proof of matriculation to some form of post-secondary education. Funding has been received from many of the companies involved in the program.

 

NMP strictly adheres to the Elements of Effective Practice, the quality assurance standards of mentoring and was one of the programs chosen to participate in the Quality Mentoring Assessment Path.  This process included a self-assessment which highlighted areas in which the NMP excels, as well as areas in need of improvement. 

 

One particular area in which the NMP is focusing is how well mentees transition from one grade to the next, one school to the next (elementary to middle and middle to high school), and how well they are prepared for life after high school.  By keeping mentors, mentees and families informed about programs offered in the community, NMP encourages the mentees to participate in valuable opportunities.  Some examples include:  

 

  1. Encouraging summer camp experiences for elementary school students, including a discount for students in the Norwalk Mentor Program for certain camps. 
  2. Sending information to the mentors & school liaisons of 8th grade mentees, as well as to their parents/guardians regarding the Freshmen Success Summer Academy for in-coming 9th graders to ease the transition to high school.   
  3. Notifying mentees who are high school juniors and their mentors about free SAT Prep courses.
  4. Following a press conference at Norwalk Community College with Governor Dannel Malloy and IBM to announce the launch of a new program, NMP emailed information to mentors of all current eighth graders, asking them to discuss the new P-Tech Early College Academy with their mentees to see if they may be interested in applying. 

 

Mentors are asked to write log notes which are reviewed by NMP staff in order to properly monitor activities and offer support.

 

The Norwalk Mentor Program is doing its part to eliminate bullying. NMP is concerned with the statistics that individuals who are bullied in childhood are more likely to have poorer physical and mental health and are at increased risk of depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal thoughts. Education, employment and social satisfaction are all adversely impacted as well.

 

Consequently, the Norwalk Mentor Program addresses bullying in the Norwalk Public Schools, every day, in a number of ways. First, when a Norwalk school is aware that a child is involved in bullying (either as the victim or the perpetrator), this student will often be referred to the NMP who then establishes a one-on-one mentoring relationship where a caring adult serves as a role model for the student. The NMP is uniquely qualified to help mitigate the effects of bullying as the mentors connect with students at the very place where the bullying is likely taking place--at school.

Additionally, the mentors serve as 'first responders'. Once a mentoring relationship is established, youth will often reveal items of concern, including possible bullying incidents, which have not yet made their way to the teaching staff. NMP's mentors are then able to involve the school so that youth can be helped.
 

Nancy Pratt
 
The Norwalk Mentor Program is housed at Norwalk's Human Services Council. Anthony DiLauro is the Council's Executive Director. Nancy Pratt, in her first year as the Director of the Norwalk Mentor Program has done an extraordinary job to coordinate the effort, find ways to expand the initiative and is creating new and innovative components on a daily basis. Congratulations to Nancy for her exemplary work and the success of the Norwalk Mentor Program.  
DR. MENTOR'S CORNER 

To Train or Not to Train, (Mentors and Mentees together) 
That is the Question!
 
Dr. Mentor

One of the most important elements of quality mentoring is to ensure that mentors and mentees are properly trained for the experience. In my almost thirty years in the mentoring field, my opinion is that we do a great job of training mentors. We do a less than adequate job of preparing mentees for the experience.

 

When very young children are involved in mentoring, they have to be told how the program works and their role yet keeping in mind that their age is a factor in the amount of information that they receive. This is usually done by the Mentoring Coordinator. It is how and when older youth are trained that remains my concern. When we train mentors alone without including older mentees in middle and high school, we can expect that the mentees may not fully understand the program's policies, may expect more than the program encompasses and often overstep their boundaries. I have had tremendous success in training mentors and mentees together.  They sit next to each other, enjoy sharing an ice breaker or two together and the bonding process begins at the training.

 

When youth and mentors learn together about the policies and procedures of the program including gift-giving, physical contact, mandated reporting of abuses, how to be a good listener, improving communication, confidentiality, improving self-esteem and goal setting, they both understand the purpose of the program. When together they hear about the exact program location (school, after school, community, internet) for sessions, involvement or not of the mentee's family and restrictions for the pair in terms of expectations around commitment, showing up and program duration, there is no confusion. All of the information is imparted at the same time. Training mentors and older mentees together provides for a strong understanding on everyone's part of what the mentoring experience entails.

 

Dr. Mentor's Corner is a regular feature of HIGHLIGHTS. 
She can be reached at
30 Jordan Lane, Wethersfield CT 06109             (p) 860-523-8042              www.preventionworksct.org