Podcast - Big Brothers Big Sisters, November 2009
Ed N. Cohn, president and CEO and Jennifer Voit, vice president of programs,both of Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Central Ohio, Inc., joined us at the Foundation to speak with Sidney Hargro, Senior Community Research and Grants Management Strategy and Organizational Learning Officer, about Project Mentor.
Visit our podcast page at www.columbusfoundationpodcasts.org for more information or previously recorded podcasts.
The following is a transcript of the interview with Ed Cohn and Jennifer Voit recorded .
Sidney Hargro: Welcome to The Columbus Foundation’s podcast where you’ll hear insights from the community and nonprofit leaders about exciting initiatives and programs impacting Central Ohio. I’m Sidney Hargro of The Columbus Foundation, and today I’m happy to be joined by two representatives from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio, Ed Cohn, president and CEO, and Jennifer Voit, vice president of Programs.
Launched in 2007, Project Mentor is a program founded by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio and utilized by Columbus City Schools. The program pairs volunteer mentors with middle and high school students and focuses on the academic as well as social and developmental needs of kids. During today’s podcast we’re going to learn a little more about Project Mentor and why Big Brothers Big Sisters has decided to roll this popular program out to sixth grade students in the district as well.
SH: Welcome Ed, welcome Jennifer
Ed Cohn: Thank you.
Jennifer Voit: Thank you.
SH: So, how did Project Mentor get started? What are the overall goals of the program? How are mentors selected? Until now, the program has served all Columbus City Schools, middle schools, and high schools, what has been the reaction been from the students? Your current initiative is to roll the program out to sixth-grade students. Why do you feel this is beneficial to the overall program?
EC: Project Mentor is the intersection of two things coming together: 1. Principal for a Day with Columbus City Schools, which is something the district in conjunction with Nationwide had been doing for several years, bringing members of the community into the district to learn what really goes on inside of the schools, and Big Brothers Big Sisters had been advocating for going to scale with school based mentoring, believing there was a lot of opportunity to bring volunteers from the community and benefit kids in the schools, so at the principal for a day in the fall of 2006 these two ideas came together and a “Call For Action” was put out for volunteers to pursue a school based mentoring program and that’s what eventually turned into Project Mentor.
SH: What are the overall goals for the program?
JV: The goals are really to provide valuable mentoring relationships to children in the Columbus City School district, and in order to assist them in achieving the districts mission, which is that each student is highly educated, prepared for leadership and service and empowered for success as a citizen in the global community. So it’s our belief in what were seeing is that through those strong mentoring relationships, students are demonstrating improvement in academics and developmental assets.
SH: The program, I believe serves Columbus City middle and high schools. The program has expanded to include all Columbus City middle schools and high schools. Correct?
JV: Correct.
SH: And what has been the reaction from the students?
JV: Overall the student’s has really enjoyed the experience. Each year we get to hear more and more stories about what the students are gaining and how much their mentor has impacted their life, one quick story, if I can share that?
SH: Please do!
JV: One eighth grade boy from the first year, who when talking to his mentor about college, he commented “I can’t go to college, because I’m blue collar.” So, the mentor really jumped on that pretty quickly and he had the impression that college was not an option simply because of his background or his status. So, it really opened the door for the mentor and the student to have those conversations and really discuss all those possibilities that are opened to him and these kind conversations are happening all the time, and that’s what‘s really great about Project Mentor, what it opens up for students in the district.
SH: So it really comes down then to the relationship that their having, this on-going relationship. Your current initiative is to roll the program out to sixth grade students, correct? And why do you feel that this is beneficial to the overall program?
EC: We’re focusing this year on the sixth grade because the sixth graders are in the same school for the most part for three years and as we recruit volunteers from around the community, a lot of them come through their company or corporate relationships. So we try to geographically make it as convenient as possible for them to commute to the school to mentor their student, and this way by starting them with a student in the sixth grade. First of all, it’s a great age to match a student with an adult mentor and secondly there’s a high likelihood that the match will stay in the same location for three years and therefore the higher likelihood that the match will stay together longer and then hopefully transition into high school, but that gives the match more time for that relationship to build. And all the research points to—the longer the match, the better the outcomes.
SH: Since you’re now venturing into the sixth grade, is this part of a greater plan to eventually rule out all grades or is that just what you’re looking at now specifically the sixth grade.
EC: Right now, the goal for Project Mentor is to be in every high school and every middle school, as we’ve mentored through the ninth grade, seventh and eighth grade, and a little of the sixth grade in prior years, and we want to make sure that we can support all existing matches. So we will continue support every match that stays together through high school and stays together through middle school and right now each year we’ll focus on a new group of young men and women in the sixth grade. Once that’s completely stabilized and rolled-out, we will than assess whether or not we should move to elementary schools.
SH: How are mentors selected?
EC: Well recruitment from the community is our broad basis, we have a lot of our volunteer mentors that are through business relationships, so there are companies all around central Ohio who encourage their employees to participate in the community, and we’ve been very fortunate in forming strong relationships with organizations throughout central Ohio. We now have 65 volunteer partners encouraging their associates to participate, we also have faith based organizations participating, service organizations and members of the community at large as well. So, our outreach is targeted as we look for partners, but it’s also on a broad basis of members of the community who would like to participate.
JV: Regarding the enrollment process, volunteers also go through a process that includes an application, training, interviews, references and a background check, and then from there we work to find the best place for them based on locations and schedules. Then we match them to a student at that particular school.
SH: How many students are currently participating in Project Mentor?
EC: Right now as we’ve concluded year two, we are about 1,300 students and as we move into year three we have about 1,700 volunteers that are interested in being matched. And so as we pursue the roll-out this fall, we’ll be recruiting more students and continuing to recruit volunteers from the community and probably targeting in that 1,700 range. However, I want to emphasize that the focus of Project Mentor is on quality not just quantity. The quality of that match, the length of that relationship and the positive outcomes therefore that can come from that match are every bit as important as the number of students that we mentor and therefore have to be moved forward hand in hand.
SH: Is each match one to one? One mentor to one student or are there some mentors with more that one student?
EC: The matches are one to one, however on occasion, when for some reason a volunteer can’t make it, they might talk with an additional child just for the session. Overall the goal is one to one matches, one to one relationships, and the key as you mentioned earlier being the relationship forming and developing. It goes back to the old saying “that a child doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” So as Jennifer mentioned, in the up-front training and the coaching we try to coach our mentors into working first on developing that relationship, knowing if that bond is formed, there will be the opportunity for them to have the types of conversation that they want to have with mentors. We also provide activities for every mentoring session, so every time the matches get together, they’re doing some type of programming and at the beginning of the year it might start with get to know you exercises and ice-breakers but that will develop into goal setting, conflict resolution, financial literacy and life skill development as the year’s progress.
SH: Is there anything else you would like to add?
EC: I think that we have a real unique opportunity here in central Ohio with this program that has been launched and really has grown and exploded very quickly but with a lot of focus on quality. We have the benefit of The Ohio State University lead by Dr. David Andrews performing a longitudinal study on Project Mentor, and providing us information back from his research so we can focus on best practices, so it’s a great opportunity. There’s school based mentoring that goes on around the country, but we’re not aware of another city that has really put this level of focus and effort into a methodical system wide district wide program. And so we think this is a great opportunity, we are looking forward to continuing to expand the program and we’re looking for volunteer mentors all the time because we have children out there that can benefit from your experiences and your expertise, so please get in touch with us if you would like to volunteer you can go to our website at www.ProjectMentorColumbus.org or call 614/839-KIDS.
SH: Thank you, Ed and Jennifer. For more information on this and other programs available through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio, please visit their PowerPhilanthropy portrait at www.columbusfoundation.org.
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