National Evaluation

• 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?

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.

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.