The Amachi model of mentoring used by the Big Brothers Big Sisters Agency in Philadelphia has demonstrated that mentors can be recruited from the communities where children of prisoners live. This can be done by developing partnerships with neighborhood civic organizations and religious institutions. Mentors in the same neighborhood should coordinate their efforts with support from the institutions from which mentors may be recruited. Once a strong base has been established in the neighborhood where the children live, volunteers can be sought from institutions in surrounding communities. Issues of race/ethnicity, class, and culture must be considered in making mentoring matches. In order to ensure the likelihood of a positive outcome from a mentoring match, each mentor's motivations and commitment must be thoroughly assessed. There should be volunteer eligibility criteria, references and criminal background checks, volunteer interviews, and an assessment of the volunteer's home environment. Training for mentors should include child sexual abuse prevention, child development, and the impact of parental incarceration on children and families. In matching a trained mentor to a particular mentee, the characteristics of both should be considered. Factors to consider are the mentor's commitment abilities, caregiver preferences, child preferences, parental preferences, shared interests, personality traits, age, geography, culture, values, language, and gender. This article also discusses using former prisoners as mentors, mentor orientation and training, volunteer support, and data collection. 8 references