Juvenile Mentoring Program: A Progress Review

• NCJ Number: 182209
• Author(s): Laurence C. Novotney; Elizabeth Mertinko; James Lange; Tara Kelley Baker
• Date Published: September 2000
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 98-JG-FX-0002
• Agencies: OJJDP
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This document lists the parameters under which the 164 current Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) programs operate and presents preliminary findings from the program’s national evaluation

Abstract

JUMP provides one-to-one mentoring for youth at risk of juvenile delinquency, gang involvement, educational failure, or dropping out of school. Guidelines published in July 1994 defined the parameters for the program’s implementation starting in 1996. Program parameters include grant awards to local educational agencies or to public or private nonprofit organizations with clearly defined collaborative relationships with these agencies, thorough background checks for all volunteer mentors, and careful assessments of youth and volunteers to establish appropriate matches. Additional parameters include activities designed to enrich and enhance youth opportunities and experiences, procedures for gathering and routinely reporting program data, establishment of JUMP projects in schools and communities where 60 percent or more of the youth come from low-income families, and recruitment of adult volunteers age 21 or older. Preliminary findings for the national evaluation revealed that both youth and mentors were quite positive when rating their mentoring experiences as assessed with respect to school achievement, abstention from drugs and alcohol, and avoidance of violence. Figures, photograph, and list of additional resource organizations