Goldberg said that about 70 percent of Fairfax County residents do not have children in school and noted that if all became mentors each student would have two or three mentors. The MentorWorks program is building on what is already in place. Recruiting mentors is a major task. The Partnership for Youth has three training sites, and training opportunities are mentioned in the Supergram every month. Once mentors are put into touch with schools, the schools take over the program.
Schools check the sex offender list and otherwise screen mentors.
Then, the school matches the student with the mentor. To determine which students in a school should first have mentors, we ask the principal for the top five students who need mentors. He was involved in a case with a runaway girl. During his work on the case he met her family. Later, he wondered what he could do for her and eventually developed a mentoring relationship with her.