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.

• 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 one-to-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. Church-based 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.

• 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-to-one matches could be made.

• Word-of-mouth recruiting. Nearly all of the projects relied on staff members and current mentors for recruiting new 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.

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.