U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

John J. Wilson, Acting Administrator September 2000

Juvenile Mentoring

Program: A Progress

Review

Laurence C. Novotney, Elizabeth Mertinko, James Lange,

and Tara Kelley Baker

As the challenges facing America’s youth

grow, programs must become more creative in countering the steady stream of

negative influences that children face each

day. One of the most potentially effective

methods is to offer a caring and responsible adult role model who can make a

positive, lasting impression on a child.

Youth mentoring programs provide a forum in which volunteer adult mentors can

develop supportive relationships with atrisk youth to help them succeed through

their childhood and adolescent years.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has supported

mentoring in a variety of ways, including

the SafeFutures Initiative, whose goal is to

prevent and control youth crime and victimization, and the State Formula Grants

program, many of whose projects offer

mentoring as part of their service delivery.

However, OJJDP’s greatest support for

mentoring projects has been through the

Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP). Part G

of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, as amended

in 1992 (P.L. 93–415: 42 U.S.C. 5667e et seq.),

established JUMP. This program provides

one-to-one mentoring for youth at risk of

delinquency, gang involvement, educational failure, or dropping out of school.

Since the program’s implementation in

1996, great strides have been made in enhancing the body of knowledge available

about mentoring as a potential intervention for at-risk youth. Information has

been collected through an automated

JUMP management information system

(MIS), intensive case studies, and extensive communication with grantee agencies. Currently, data are available for 7,515

youth, 6,163 mentors, and 6,362 matches.1

Program Parameters

JUMP guidelines were published in July

1994 to articulate the intent of the legislation and to provide the framework within

which the grantee projects should operate.

1 Although the JUMP legislation supports one-to-one

mentoring, a practical consideration for most projects

is that they are often able to recruit youth faster than

they can recruit mentors. Projects are encouraged to

record information on youth as soon as they enroll,

rather than waiting until youth are matched with mentors before entering this information into the database.

Therefore, this apparent discrepancy in the numbers

of youth, mentors, and matches does not mean that

projects are not offering one-to-one mentoring. Rather,

it indicates that projects may have enrolled youth who

have not yet been matched with mentors.

From the Administrator

The support and example of caring

adults play a critical role in helping

youth at risk for delinquency to

overcome the challenges they face.

Juvenile mentoring programs are an

effective means of providing at-risk

youth with the adult assistance and

positive role models they require.

Many valuable lessons have been

learned since the implementation of

OJJDP’s Juvenile Mentoring Program

(JUMP) in 1996. This Bulletin lists the

parameters under which the current

164 JUMP projects operate and

describes the scope and methodology of JUMP’s ongoing national

evaluation.

Preliminary findings from the national

evaluation are also provided, including the degree to which youth and

mentors were satisfied with the mentoring relationship and whether each

perceived any benefit to the youth as

a result of participation in JUMP. Both

youth and mentors were quite positive

when rating their mentoring experiences, which were assessed in such

terms as school achievement, abstention from drugs and alcohol, and

avoidance of violence.

Mentoring can be used as a primary

intervention to prevent delinquency or

as a remedial intervention to address

it. This Bulletin provides information

and additional resources that will

enable readers to assess JUMP’s

merits for their communities.

John J. Wilson

Acting Administrator
2

The guidelines emphasize the following

project characteristics:

◆ Grant awards to local educational

agencies (LEA’s) or to those public or

private nonprofit organizations that

have clearly defined collaborative

relationships with LEA’s.

◆ Thorough background checks for all

volunteer mentors to help ensure a

safe environment for each child.

◆ Careful assessments of youth and

volunteers to establish appropriate

matches that maximize opportunities

for success.

◆ Mentor and project activities designed

to enrich and enhance opportunities

and experiences for youth.

◆ Procedures for gathering and routinely

reporting programmatic data to support both internal self-evaluations and

a national JUMP evaluation.

◆ Establishment of JUMP projects in

schools and/or communities in which

60 percent or more of the youth qualify

to receive a free or reduced-price lunch.

◆ Recruitment of adult (age 21 or older)

mentors.

Within these parameters, grantees have developed models for their mentoring projects

that are appropriate for the needs of their

communities and the youth they serve.

Projects Funded

In 1995, OJJDP announced the availability

of combined fiscal year (FY) 1994 and 1995

JUMP funds and competitively awarded 41

grants of up to $180,000 each for a 3-year

period (cohort I) to implement mentoring

projects. Another 52 agencies and organizations (cohort II) were awarded JUMP

funds of up to $190,000 with combined

FY 1996 and 1997 funds, for a total of 93

JUMP projects. In June 1999, OJJDP announced the award of up to $210,000 to 71

additional agencies (cohort III), bringing

the total number of JUMP projects to 164

in 41 States, the District of Columbia, and

the U.S. Virgin Islands (see figure 1).

National Evaluation

Projects that compete for scarce funding

need to ensure that they are using their resources in the most efficient and appropriate manner. To determine the specific benefits of mentoring and develop increased

knowledge about best practices, Congress

included a requirement for cross-site evaluation. A grant to design and implement the

evaluation was competitively awarded to

Information Technology International (ITI)

in 1997. The national evaluation team,

which includes researchers from the Pacific

Institute for Research and Evaluation and

ITI, was charged with increasing the body

of knowledge about mentoring as an intervention and with answering questions such

as the following:

◆ What do youth and mentors perceive

to be the benefits of the mentoring

relationship?

◆ Does mentoring affect school attendance, school performance, and dropping out? If so, how?

◆ Does mentoring affect youth involvement

in delinquent behaviors? If so, how?

◆ What are the various risk and protective factors that JUMP youth face?

How does mentoring affect these

factors?

◆ What are the characteristics of successful youth-mentor matches?

◆ How are successful mentoring projects

structured? What are some of their

characteristics?

The national evaluation team collects information in a common format from all

JUMP grantees. This standardized information enables the team to make comparisons and draw conclusions about the

practice of mentoring based on the experiences of the 164 existing JUMP projects.

Project Information

The national evaluation team is tasked

with collecting information on how mentoring projects across the country offer

services to their target populations. To

this end, it asked each agency to complete

a profile (to be updated annually) that includes but is not limited to the following

information:

◆ Location of the project (urban, suburban, rural).

◆ Gender, ethnicity, and ages of youth

served.

◆ Gender, ethnicity, employment, and

educational status of adult mentors.

◆ Procedures for screening and training

mentors.

◆ Policies for parental permission and

participation.

◆ Funding sources.

◆ Staffing levels.

◆ Policies, procedures, and preferences

for matching youth with mentors.

These profiles provide the team with the

information necessary to determine how

the operation of mentoring projects varies across the country and to identify the

Figure 1: Location of JUMP Grantees

Cohort I

Cohort II

Cohort III

Virgin Islands
3

types of projects that might work in other

communities.

Youth Information

Obtaining information about youth served

through JUMP projects is at the core of the

national evaluation. The primary purpose

of the evaluation is to determine the impact of mentoring on youth who participate in the project. To do this, the national

evaluation team must collect information

on the youth when they enroll, at regular

intervals during the course of the project,

and when they leave the project. Because

it is believed that mentoring may have a

positive impact on school attendance and

performance, the evaluation team collects

information on the grades, attendance, and

school behavior of each youth. Because

mentoring may help to decrease involvement in delinquent behaviors and gang

activities, the national evaluation team

also collects information on the youth’s

gang involvement and contacts with law

enforcement. General demographic information and scores on a standardized risk

screening instrument (the Problem Oriented Screening Instrument for Teens) allow

the team to determine what risk factors

are present in the lives of JUMP youth and

how mentoring can ameliorate the effects

of these risk factors. Finally, the youth are

asked to give their perceptions about the

mentoring relationship when they leave

the project, which helps the team identify

the aspects of a youth’s life that are affected the most (and the least) by the

mentoring relationship.

Mentor Information

The participation of caring adult mentors

is vital to the success of JUMP projects.

The success of the mentoring relationship

is based, in part, on the skills and characteristics of the mentor. Therefore, the national evaluation team collects demographic,

education, and employment information

about the mentors who volunteer in JUMP

projects. Information regarding motivations to mentor and reasons for terminating involvement in the mentoring project

is also gathered and analyzed. This helps

the team determine the types of individuals that have the greatest potential to develop positive relationships with youth.

JUMP projects have widely divergent philosophies in regard to mentor training and

support. The national evaluation team

examines how training and support are

related to the success of the mentor relationship. Studying the various characteristics of mentors yields information on

how projects can best select, train, and

support adults who volunteer for mentoring projects. Mentors are also asked to

provide the national evaluation team with

their perceptions of the mentoring relationship (the areas of a youth’s life in

which the mentor felt that he or she had

the greatest and the least influence) when

they leave the project. A comparison of

youth and mentor perceptions of the benefits of the relationship provides valuable

knowledge about the differences between

these two points of view.

Match Information

A fundamental aspect of any mentoring

project is the ability to match youth with

compatible mentors so that mutually satisfying relationships can develop. Collecting

data on the characteristics of youth-mentor

matches allows the team to determine the

types of matches that can provide a positive experience for youth and mentors

alike. Of particular interest to the national

evaluation team are questions such as the

following:

◆ Are there significant differences in the

success of cross-race or cross-gender

matches as compared with the success

of same-race or same-gender matches?

◆ How does duration of the match affect

the success of the relationship?

Data Collection

The JUMP national evaluation team has refined its data collection mechanisms to

improve the timeliness and accuracy of

the information collected. When the evaluation began in 1997, JUMP grantees gathered evaluation information and submitted

it to the team on paper forms. This system

was cumbersome, and grantees could not

access the evaluation information for internal use. In the summer of 1999, JUMP grantees began gathering and submitting data

through an automated JUMP MIS. This system allows grantees to transmit data to the

national evaluation team electronically (on

disk or via e-mail). Local projects have continuous access to their data, which they

can use for self-evaluation,public relations,

fundraising, or other purposes. The JUMP

MIS also produces a wide variety of reports

that grantee organizations can use for program evaluation, for support of applications

for continued funding, or for other types of

support. In the future, the JUMP MIS will

allow OJJDP to continue to gather information in a standardized format from JUMP

grantees across the country for ongoing

analysis and reporting.

National Evaluation

Findings to Date

The national evaluation team receives

quarterly data from JUMP grantees. The

following information is based on data

submitted by nearly 90 percent of cohort

I and II grantees (projects funded in 1995

and 1997). A more thorough analysis of

preliminary data is available in the 1998

Report to Congress: Juvenile Mentoring

Program (JUMP). Cohort III grantees began

submitting data in fall 1999. These data

and continuing data from cohorts I and II

will enable the national evaluation team to

draw more conclusions about JUMP.

JUMP Youth

JUMP projects have reported 7,422 youth

enrolled. More than 60 percent of these
4

youth are enrolled in projects that were

funded in 1997 (cohort II). As a whole,

the projects serve a balanced mix of boys

(48.4 percent) and girls (51.3 percent)

(0.3 percent of the records do not include

gender). Three projects serve only girls

and five projects serve only boys. Of the

youth who are enrolled, 5,425 have been

matched with a mentor at least once.

At the time of enrollment, youth are just

under 12 years old on average. However,

a wide distribution of ages is represented

among the participants (see figure 2). Because it takes time to match a youth to a

mentor, the ages at first match are slightly

higher than age at enrollment, averaging

just over 12 years. The age at second

match averages 13.5 years, and the age at

third match averages 14.3 years.

JUMP projects serve children of many racial and ethnic backgrounds; a substantial

proportion of the enrolled youth are African American (see figure 3). More than half

(55.4 percent of the agencies that reported

on enrollment) either serve minority children exclusively or have an enrollment of

10 percent or less of white children. However, two projects serve white children

almost exclusively.

Most of the youth enrolled in JUMP projects

live in single-parent households. Less than

20 percent are from intact two-parent households (see figure 4). JUMP youth are usually

exposed to some risk factors (for example,

parental drug or alcohol use, friends who

engage in delinquent behavior, or poor

grades) and are lacking in protective factors

(for example, clear standards and consistent discipline, a sense of social belonging,

or realistically high parental expectations

for achievement). Of those youth for whom

data are available, school and social/family

domains are the most frequent areas of

increased risk (see table, page 5).

JUMP Mentors

The volunteer mentors involved in JUMP

projects constitute a diverse group.

Although many projects try to recruit

mentors from the same racial and ethnic

groups as the youth enrolled, mentors

are most likely to be white females. More

than half of the mentors are white (see

figure 5), and 62.8 percent are women.

In general, mentors are well educated.

Of those mentors for whom education

information was available, 83 percent

had completed at least some college.

Because there are disproportionate numbers of white and female mentors, some

African American and Hispanic youth,

and some boys, are assigned mentors

who are of a different race and/or gender.

Genders are matched in 85.1 percent of

first matches and ethnicity is matched in

58.3 percent of first matches. When first

matches are not of the same race, a white

mentor is matched to a nonwhite youth

77.8 percent of the time. Only 4.1 percent

of all matches consist of a female youth

with a male mentor.

Satisfaction and

Perceived Benefits

Although mentoring has been used as an

intervention with youth (both formally

and informally) for many years, proof of

its effectiveness is just beginning to be

evidenced by the data. It is logical that if

mentoring can support positive youth development, it can also affect progress toward the JUMP goals, namely, reduction in

delinquency and gang involvement, improvement in academic performance, and

reduction in school dropout rates.

Figure 3: Race/Ethnicity of JUMP

Youth

Other 1.1%

American 

Indian 6.9%

Asian/Pacific 

Islander 1.0%

African American 

51.1%

Hispanic

18.5%

White 21.4%

Figure 4: Family Structure of

JUMP Youth

Figure 2: Average Age at Enrollment Number of Participants

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

4.5 6.5 8.5 10.5 12.5 14.5 16.5 18.5 20.5

Age

Figure 5: Race/Ethnicity of

Mentors

Other 6.9%

Mother 

Only 56.2%

Father Only 3.6%

Parent and 

Other 7.6%

Both Parents

19.6%

Other Relative 6.1%

African 

American 

31.2%

White 55.0%

Other 1.0%

American Indian 

1.1%

Asian/Pacific 

Islander 2.4%

Hispanic 9.3%
5

The JUMP national evaluation will play an

important role in expanding the body of

information about mentoring. However,

some assessments can be made now, such

as whether—and to what degree—youth

and mentors are satisfied with the mentoring relationship and whether each perceives any benefit to the youth as a result

of participation in the JUMP project.

JUMP grantees obtained feedback from

youth and mentors using a standardized

instrument to ensure consistency in reporting across sites. The results of this data

collection are summarized in this Bulletin.

A complete discussion of preliminary material is available in the 1998 Report to Congress: Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP).

Both youth and mentors viewed the experience as positive. Youth and mentors

were asked to indicate whether they believed the mentoring relationship helped

the youth a little, a lot, or not at all in

regard to the following behaviors:

◆ Getting better grades.

◆ Attending all classes.

◆ Staying away from alcohol.

◆ Staying away from drugs.

◆ Avoiding fights.

◆ Staying away from gangs.

◆ Not using knives or guns.

◆ Avoiding friends who start trouble.

◆ Getting along with family.

Both youth and mentors were very positive when rating various aspects of their

mentoring experiences, although perceptions of their relationships did not correspond completely.

Match characteristics affected perceived

benefits. In 463 cases (265 female mentees

and 198 male mentees), the data available

allowed researchers to combine, using assigned identification numbers, information

received from mentors and youth regarding perceived benefits with corresponding

demographic and match characteristics.

From these cases, an indication of the perceived satisfaction and benefits could be

analyzed with respect to some youth and

mentor descriptive characteristics.

The data suggest that boys matched with

female mentors and boys matched with

male mentors differed somewhat in their

perception of the benefits of the mentoring

relationship.2

 Boys paired with female mentors reported that they liked their mentors

and felt understood by them to the same

degree as boys paired with male mentors.

However, boys who were matched with

male mentors reported greater benefits

with respect to avoiding drugs and gangs

than did boys matched with female mentors. There were marginally significant differences in reports that mentoring helped

youth avoid the use of alcohol and weapons. It is important to remember that these

results must be confirmed with more objective data because the reports of perceived

benefits by the youth cannot be taken

as an indisputable measure of project

effectiveness.

Mentor reports differed somewhat from

those of mentees. Female mentors paired

with boys reported that they observed

significantly less improvement than did their

male counterparts in the following areas:

◆ Staying away from drugs and alcohol.

◆ Avoiding fights.

◆ Staying away from gangs.

◆ Not using knives or guns.

◆ Avoiding friends who start trouble.

When youth and mentors were of different races or ethnicities, the mentors

reported that they perceived significantly

less improvement in the above areas and

in class attendance. Mentors paired with

youth of the same race or ethnicity reported that they believed they understood their mentee better than those

involved in cross-race matches.

The benefit of cross-race and cross-gender

matches to youth is an important area for

further study. However, it is important to

bear in mind that self-report data are subject to various influences that can affect

the data’s validity; therefore, research using more objective measures is needed. In

addition, more sophisticated research designs and analyses are needed to control

for potentially confounding variables.

Project-Level Evaluation

While the national evaluation is beginning to

answer questions about JUMP as a whole,

each project should still conduct its own

internal evaluation to answer questions that

are relevant to its operations. Project-level

evaluation (or self-evaluation) is a vital component of any social service project. It is

especially important for mentoring projects

because of the unique nature of mentoring

as an intervention. By definition, mentoring

relationships are quite personal and vary

greatly from one match to another. Similarly,

mentoring projects differ widely from one

another. Finally, because relatively little

Risk Domains of JUMP Youth

Percentage of Enrolled Youth*

Male Female

Risk Domain (n=3,592) (n=3,807)

School Problems 74.6% 63.0%

School behavior 39.5 23.5

Poor grades 53.6 45.9

Truancy 10.4 9.1

Social/Family Problems 51.7 56.4

Delinquency 17.5 8.5

Fighting 12.8 6.3

Property crime 2.8 0.5

Gang activity 3.0 1.0

Weapons 1.1 0.4

Alcohol Use 3.2 1.5

Drug Use 4.0 1.8

Tobacco Use 2.3 1.9

Pregnancy/Early Parenting 0.2 1.5

*Percentage of total JUMP enrollment for each gender. For 23 youth, no gender was reported

in the database.

2 Only two girls were matched with male mentors in the

subset of data used; therefore, an analysis could not be

conducted for matches of girls with male mentors.
6

mentoring research is available, it is important for projects to integrate ongoing selfevaluation into their activities. Some

projects already conduct project-level evaluations because they have staff members

who are interested in evaluation results or

who have backgrounds in evaluation. However, these projects are the exception. To

meet the needs of projects that do not have

many evaluation resources, OJJDP developed the JUMP Self-Evaluation Workbook.

The workbook is designed to guide mentoring projects of any size and with any level of

evaluation experience through the process

of creating a project logic model, designing

an evaluation based on that model, interpreting data, and using evaluation results.

The workbook will be distributed to all

JUMP grantees later this year.

Site Visits

The foundation of the national evaluation

of JUMP is the data provided by grantees.

However, recognizing that it is not always

possible to gain a complete understanding of projects without seeing them in operation, the national evaluation team completed nine site visits and documented the

findings in a series of reports to OJJDP.

These visits supplement the information

gathered through the national evaluation

effort and enhance the understanding of

the challenges that projects face and their

responses to these challenges.

Participation in site visits was voluntary

for JUMP projects. In selecting sites to be

invited to participate, the national evaluation team considered the following factors:

◆ Size of the project (number of youth

served, number of mentors recruited,

and number of matches made).

◆ Programmatic or service model (type

of matches and type of activities).

◆ Geographic location.

◆ Year funded (cohort).

◆ Relationship with LEA (extent and type

of support by LEA).

◆ Demographics, such as gender and race/

ethnicity, of youth served by the project.

A select group of projects representative of

the JUMP program were invited to participate in the site visits. These projects were

asked to support the team’s efforts to interview youth, mentors, and key project staff

and supporters by arranging and participating in interviews, facilitating meetings, and

providing access to various project documents and records. Projects that participated in the site visits are listed below.

◆ Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of

Northwest Florida, Pensacola, FL.

BBBS affiliate in Southeast using corporate mentors.

◆ City of Madison Mentoring Program,

Madison, WI. Works with youth in two

high-risk neighborhoods.

◆ Community Service and Employment

Training, Visalia, CA. Works primarily

with migrant youth in a school-based

project.

◆ Greater Lawrence Community

Action Council (GLCAC), Lawrence,

MA. Project based in a large community action organization.

◆ Ohio Dominican College, Columbus,

OH. College setting that combines oneto-one mentoring with a cluster concept.

◆ Project RAISE, Baltimore, MD. Enrolled 90 youth in second grade and

is following them until high school

graduation.

◆ St. John Baptist Church Mentoring

Program, Columbia, MD. Churchbased project for African American

males.

◆ Valley Youth Foundation, San Jacinto,

CA. Recreation center-based project.

◆ Virginia Department of Correctional

Education, Richmond, VA. Provides

mentors to youth in two of Virginia’s

residential correctional facilities.

The site visits addressed the following

topics:

◆ Operational procedures.

◆ Training procedures.

◆ Mentor motivations and expectations.

◆ Mentee motivations and expectations.

◆ Day-to-day activities.

◆ Best practices.

◆ Special challenges.

◆ Benefits perceived by youth, mentors,

and project staff.

The national evaluation team obtained extensive information from the site visits.3

Several of the insights and recurring themes

derived from this qualitative information are

summarized in the following sections.

Recruitment of Mentors

Many of the projects reported difficulty

in recruiting enough mentors to serve

the enrolled youth. Male mentors (especially minorities) are in high demand.

Projects employed various strategies to

enhance mentor recruitment, including

the following:

◆ Forming a partnership with a business

entity. The Village to Child Mentoring

Program at Ohio Dominican College in

Columbus, OH, has formed a partnership with the Defense Finance and

Accounting Service (DFAS), Columbus

Branch. DFAS is responsible for recruiting and training mentors from among

its staff and allows 4 hours of leave

from work per month for employees to

participate in mentoring activities.

◆ Recruiting from churches or other established entities. The St. John Baptist

Church Mentoring Program in Columbia, MD, recruits mentors from its congregation. In addition, it has begun to

recruit from the fraternal and service

organizations to which current mentors

belong.

◆ Establishing supplemental mentoring

structures. The Village to Child Mentoring Program, described previously,

formed mentoring clusters (groups of

mentor-mentee pairs) to give youth the

opportunity to form relationships with

adults other than their primary mentor.

At other sites, project staff became informal mentors to youth until one-toone matches could be made.

◆ Word-of-mouth recruiting. Nearly all

of the projects relied on staff members

3 These findings will be the subject of another report.
7

and current mentors for recruiting new

mentors.

Motivations for Mentors

Because recruitment of mentors is a significant hurdle for most projects, it is

important to understand what motivates

a person to become a mentor. Following

are some primary reasons that individuals give for wanting to become mentors:

◆ A need or desire to give something

back to the community. This was often

accompanied by a sense of a shared

experience with the youth (e.g., growing up in the same neighborhood or

under similar circumstances).

◆ Enjoyment derived from working

with youth. Many mentors reported

that they enjoyed the time they spent

with youth. Some had grown children

and wanted an opportunity to spend

time with other young people. Other

mentors reported that they currently

had children living at home and felt

that mentoring helped them better understand and relate to their children.

◆ Career experience. A specialized subset of mentors, primarily those involved in mentoring projects located

in college settings, reported that they

volunteered as mentors to determine

whether they wanted to work with

youth in their future careers.

Use of Funding/Securing

Continued Support

Projects relied on various strategies to

supplement JUMP funds throughout the

life of the grant and to ensure the project’s

continuation after grant support ended.

Most of the projects reported that they

used at least part of the JUMP funds to

support one or two staff members to run

the project, recruit mentors, and perform

other administrative functions. All of the

projects relied on financial or in-kind

support other than the JUMP grant to

keep their projects operational. The following types of support were solicited:

◆ Grants from State or local governments or from private foundations.

A few of the grantees were exploring

these sources of funding to maintain

their projects, while others planned to

merge with other agencies or initiatives. The Virginia Department of Correctional Education planned to end its

project at the end of the grant period

with the expectation that it would resume under a statewide initiative being

considered by the State Senate. The

City of Madison Mentoring Project in

Madison, WI, planned to incorporate

the JUMP project into Dane County

BBBS and seek additional funding from

the United Way at the end of the JUMP

grant period.

◆ Commercial or corporate sponsors

to expand programming or provide

incentives. The project run by GLCAC

in Lawrence, MA, formed a partnership

with United Parcel Service that provided job opportunities for enrolled

youth. GLCAC also relied on the Timberland Corporation to provide backpacks, clothing, and other items to use

as incentives for students. BBBS of

Northwest Florida relied on its relationship with Big Rhino Screen Printing, a

local company, to provide employment

opportunities and promotional items

for special events.

Training and Technical

Assistance

OJJDP has identified various areas for

training and technical assistance to

support the JUMP projects. In 1998,

OJJDP competitively awarded a JUMP

Training and Technical Assistance grant

to Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL). Under this agreement,

NWREL, in collaboration with BBBS of

America and Public/Private Ventures, will

develop ongoing training and education

programs (designed to identify and reinforce best practices) for JUMP grantees

and other mentoring projects. NWREL

will also provide onsite technical assistance to JUMP projects. In addition to

hosting annual JUMP cluster conferences

to promote the sharing of information

(the first conference was held in New Orleans, LA, in June 1999), NWREL has also

facilitated the selection of mentoring host

sites across the country. These host sites

are projects that have an identified strength

in a particular technical assistance area;

they will host regional conferences throughout the year and will be available to serve

as resources to other mentoring projects

that require assistance. JUMP host sites and

their areas of expertise are listed below.

◆ BBBS of Metro Atlanta, GA. Mentor

training, targeted recruitment, cultural/

ethnic/socioeconomic issues.

Additional Resources

America’s Promise—The Alliance

for Youth

Alexandria, VA

703–684–4500

www.americaspromise.org

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Philadelphia, PA

215–567–7000

www.bbbsa.org

Boys & Girls Clubs of America

Atlanta, GA

404–815–5700

www.bgca.org

Communities In Schools, Inc.

Alexandria, VA

703–519–8999

www.cisnet.org

National Mentoring Center

Portland, OR

800–547–6339

www.nwrel.org/mentoring/index.html

One to One/National Mentoring

Partnership

Washington, DC

202–729–4345

www.mentoring.org

The Points of Light Foundation

Washington, DC

202–729–8000

www.pointsoflight.org

Public/Private Ventures

Philadelphia, PA

215–557–4400

www.ppv.org

YMCA of the USA

Chicago, IL

312–977–0031

www.ymca.net

◆ BBBS of New York, NY (non-JUMP

project). Support for mentors, project

evaluation.

◆ Boys & Girls Club of the Northern

Cheyenne Nation, Lame Deer, MT.

Working with American Indian populations, building community support,

training mentor trainers.

◆ Valley BBBS, Phoenix, AZ. Recruitment, screening, and training of mentors; building community support/

coalitions.

◆ Young Leaders Academy of Baton

Rouge, LA. Supervision of matches, parental involvement, targeted recruitment.
PRESORTED STANDARD

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/OJJDP

PERMIT NO. G–91

Bulletin NCJ 182209

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Washington, DC 20531

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

This Bulletin was prepared under grant

number 98–JG–FX–0002 from the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,

U.S. Department of Justice.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this

document are those of the authors and do not

necessarily represent the official position or

policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of

Justice.

Acknowledgments

This Bulletin was written by Laurence

C. Novotney and Elizabeth Mertinko

of Information Technology International and James Lange and Tara

Kelley Baker of Pacific Institute for

Research and Evaluation. They would

like to thank OJJDP and the JUMP

project staff, mentors, mentees, and

families for their cooperation and

enthusiasm. They would also like to

thank the JUMP projects in Baltimore

and Columbia, MD; Columbus, OH;

Lawrence, MA; Madison, WI; Pensacola, FL; Richmond, VA; and San

Jacinto and Visalia, CA, for sharing

their successes and lessons learned

during site visits.

Photograph page 3 copyright © 2000

PhotoDisc, Inc.; photograph page 6

copyright © 2000 Gerard Fritz/West

Stock. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes

the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau

of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of

Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

Conclusion

Mentoring shows great promise as an effective intervention for at-risk youth. Through

JUMP, OJJDP not only has helped communities to establish mentoring projects that

serve youth directly but also has supported

research to enhance understanding of the

dynamics of mentoring relationships. Knowledge obtained from the JUMP national evaluation will help future mentoring projects provide effective, pragmatic services to the

Nation’s youth. As the body of knowledge

grows, so does the enthusiasm for mentoring as a way of making a positive and

lasting impact on America’s youth.

For Further

Information

For more information on OJJDP’s Juvenile Mentoring Program, contact the

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC) at

800–638–8736 (phone), 301–519–5600

(fax), or www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org (Internet).

JJC also maintains a JUMP Web page

(www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/jump/index.html).

The following OJJDP documents on

related topics are available from JJC:

◆ 1998 Report to Congress: Juvenile

Mentoring Program (JUMP) (NCJ

173424, 1998).

◆ Mentoring—A Proven Delinquency Prevention Strategy (NCJ 164386, 1997).

◆ Mentoring for Youth in Schools and

Communities—Satellite Teleconference

(NCJ 166376, 1997). The cost for the

videotape is $17 ($21 if shipped outside the United States).