Partner for Youth/Photo courtesy
Take a moment and think back to your time as a middle school student (some of us have to think further back than others). Remember what it felt like to navigate social dynamics, multiple teachers, homework, family, and more.
Now imagine you are a middle school student and have experienced some difficult things in your life. You are new to school, quiet, shy, and generally avoid contact with others. Every day, you sit alone at lunch and look at your lap while you eat. Your teachers and school counselors notice this and offer to connect you with a mentor at school.
You agree, as do your parents, and so you spend an hour or so with your mentor once a week. Sometimes you catch up on school work together. Sometimes you talk about how things are going at home, and sometimes you just have casual conversations. In general, you enjoy this time because it’s just you and your mentor, and the mentor isn’t a therapist, teacher, coach, or principal. Your mentor is someone you can talk to, trust, and feel safe with.
Thanks to time with your mentor and the constant support of teachers and other school personnel, you begin to socialize with your classmates inside and outside of school, attend class, and turn in your schoolwork on time. Eventually, you have a really rough day and your emotions build up so much that you tell your mentor everything and storm out of the room.
Over the next few weeks, your mentor stays in touch with you but doesn’t pressure you to meet. Finally, you stop by their office and tell them everything that’s been going on with you recently. You can apologize to your mentor and thank them for checking in with you over the last few weeks, all because you’ve built a safe and trusting relationship with them.
At the end of the school year, you still have your difficult days, but you go to school regularly, have made friends and have established contacts with the adults at your school.
Come back to the present and consider how important it was for this student to have another trusted adult at school. That’s exactly what Partners for Youth provides with its school-based mentoring services.
Our school-based mentors work 20 to 25 hours each week in Routt County and Moffat County schools to provide high-quality one-on-one mentoring to at-risk youth. The partner program recruits, screens, and trains school-based mentors. We partner with school counselors and social workers, teachers, and administrators to implement the program.
The above story is just one example among many of how having an additional trusted adult in school can be a resource, advocate, supporter, and connector for students. We are excited to enter our second year of providing a school-based mentor at Craig Middle School and to continue our collaboration with several schools in Routt County.
For more information about Partners for Youth and School-Based Mentoring, visit PartnersYouth.org..
Lindsay Kohler is executive director of Partners for Youth.
