Our Mentor Program provides positive female role models and strong support structures to motivated teenage girls who are ready to explore who they are and discover their community at large. Girls attending SEED in 2007, ages 12 and older, are eligible to participate in our Mentor Program. The program launched in 2000 as a means of providing teenage girls with year-round support networks during the challenging teenage years.

Selected professional women are carefully screened and then matched by our Director of the Mentor Program with the most compatible girls. The program is a year-long commitment between the mentor and mentee. Each month, mentors and mentees spend between six and eight hours together, participating in fun and enriching activities throughout the New York metropolitan area. Activities range from visiting museums, seeing a Broadway play, bike riding, ice skating, bowling, and helping with homework, to tasting a variety of ethnic foods or exploring new neighborhoods.

As both get to know one another and build their friendship, the mentors have an opportunity to share their life experiences and the mentee has a chance to learn from someone they can relate to about life, how to handle difficult situations, and how to prepare for their future goals.

Mentors often find the program to be far more then a chance "to give back" and have said the relationships they've developed have brought as much change and positive impact to their lives as to their mentees.

Mentor Program Goals:

• Increase girls' sense of self worth.
• Improve girls' perspective toward education.
• Help girls develop and define their short-term and long-term goals.
• Provide them with positive support and encouragement.
• Help them become self-sufficient, motivated adults.
  

In 2005, the Mentor Program reached its goal of 40 matches. Matches are required to commit to at least one year, and many extend beyond, to two or more years. All 40 girls in the Mentor Program met with their mentors at least 6-8 hours per month. The pairs went on a wide variety of excursions that were educational, enriching, and fun. As a result of this contact, over the past year, our Mentor Program has successfully helped our young women develop:

• Increased communication skills utilizing email, phone, and surface mail, as well as one-on-one in person, to communicate with their mentors.

• Increased sense of self-worth with the ongoing encouragement of their trained mentors.

• A greater sense of empathy and caring for others by evidencing greater trust, better relationships with family and community, and a greater sense of their responsibility for the world around them.

• Leadership skills that will encourage extracurricular activities, planning, and decision-making and a sense of personal power over choices in their lives.

Parents, mentees, and mentors have continued to express positive change in the mentees’ lives, as detailed by the following survey data:

• On a scale of 1-10, with 10 highest, 76% of mentees reported in their semi-annual survey that their relationship with their mentors rated, on average, 9.

• There was a 19% increase after the sixth month in mentees expressing belief that they could do anything they put their mind to.

• Initially, 29% of mentees had reported that their ability to express their own feelings was between poor and very poor. After one year in the program, 67% of mentees felt that their ability to express their own feelings had improved from average to very good.

• Mentees’ outlook on their futures improved significantly, from 45% initially feeling that it was very good, to 100% at the end of one year in the program.

In addition, from mentors we learned that:

• In the sixth month, 53% of the mentors were either satisfied or more than satisfied in the level of communication with their mentees. This figure grew to 83% at the end of their one-year match.

• There was a 41% improvement after the sixth month in the number of mentors rating the Mentor Program as satisfactory or very satisfactory.

• On a scale from 1-10 (with 10 highest), 39% of mentors initially rated their mentees’ commitment between eight and 10. After being matched for one year, 83% of the mentors rated their mentees’ commitment between eight and 10.

• 56% reported at the mid-year mark that their mentees’ ability to express their feelings in a healthy way was good or very good. This figure improved significantly to 100% at the end of the one-year requirement.

• Mentors observed a 35% increase after the sixth month in mentees’ verbal communication skills.

• In the beginning of the match, 44% of mentors rated their mentees’ leadership ability and decision making skills as good or very good. This figure improved by 31%, to 3 out of 4, after being matched for one year.

And parents shared the following:

• In the sixth month, 65% of parents rated their daughter’s ability to express themselves between good and very good. This increased to 100% at the twelve-month mark.

• After six months, 78% of the parents ranked their daughter’s self-confidence between good and very good, whereas after the twelfth month this grew to 100%.

• 100% reported their daughters’ sense of personal power (belief she can do anything she puts her mind to) between average and very good at the end of the one-year match.

• After their daughter’s participating in a mentoring relationship, 100% of parents reported their daughter’s ability to set and achieve goals for themselves as between average and very good.

Some unexpected results in 2005 include:

• Girls in the Mentor Program are developing more quickly the maturity and competency needed to join our Teen Leadership Program, which among other things provides youth counselors to our summer program. As the growth in mentees helps over time to grow the Teen Leadership Program, this will increase opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and growth, and deepen the mutual connections of both sets of girls to each other and to Girls Quest.

• We are also seeing more girls from the Mentor Program choosing to return to the summer SEED Program—and this is not only leading to deeper involvement and program growth, it is also leading to our having more girls coming to our summer program who are more prepared and more engaged.

The Mentor Program has had a great impact on Girls Quest, and we expect those effects to continue and grow as we build on the program’s success and also use that success to strengthen our other programs.