Adults with a little spare time to spend with a child are being sought for a different kind of mentoring program being introduced this week by Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Emporians for Drug Awareness.
“We’re recruiting volunteers from the community, adults who are interested in spending one hour a week with a child,” said Margi Grimwood, SDFS coordinator. “We have different kinds of mentoring opportunities — lunch buddy, reading buddy, playground buddy” and buddies for other activities and interests.
The YouthFriends Mentoring Program will match adults and children according to those interests. An adult may state preferences for age and gender of the child.
The program will be initiated in Riverside and William Allen White elementary schools, with children in kindergarten through fourth grade eligible to participate. As the program grows, it will be expanded to Lowther South and North intermediate schools, Emporia Middle School and Emporia High School.
“Every child needs an extra friend,” Grimwood said. “We’re not necessarily targeting kids that are at-risk. We feel that every child is in need of a mentor, another adult that will take the time to listen, talk with them ... do something that the child enjoys.”
Mentoring will take place only during the school day, on the school grounds and only one hour per week. Mentors will be needed for English-speaking students and for English as a Second Language students, she said. Regular meeting times will be set, although those schedules can be flexible when school holidays, vacations and other schedule changes interfere with the set times.
Mentoring, however, can take place only before school, at lunch, or during after-school programs. The commitment is for one school year.
“Then we hope that they will sign up again next year and, hopefully, they can sign up with the same child,” she said.
The program offers a lot of reading opportunities, she said, to help students work on improving reading scores by listening to an adult read or by reading to an adult.
Grimwood said that having other responsible adults working with children and serving as positive role models will be another layer of prevention in the effort to deter youngsters from risky or destructive behavior.
“We know that part of prevention is helping children stay away from risky behaviors and increase their protection factors,” Grimwood said. By using mentors that students can look up to and spend time with, “we know that’s a component of prevention that we can add in our schools.”
Requests for mentors can come from teachers, parents, or students.
“Our goal is to have 50 matches this year, but we hope that each year we’ll continue and have more matches,” Grimwood said. “We want each match to be a quality match ... where the student looks forward to the adult coming and the adult looks forward to meeting with that child every week.”
Mentors will need to complete applications, which will be sent to YouthFriends Kansas at Greenbush. After background checks through the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Child Abuse and Neglect Information System, and other databases, the approved mentor will undergo interviews, training and orientation before being matched with a student. The first volunteer training will take place on Nov. 16.
Parents or guardians will need to complete permission forms before their children can be linked with a mentor.
The local program is affiliated with YouthFriends Kansas. Grimwood said that the state program had done extensive research into creating a good school-based mentoring program, and provides support and coordinator education meetings for local units.
“We just hope we can get people who want to give of their time,” Grimwood said, “and one hour a week really can make a difference in the life of a child.”
More information may be had by calling Grimwood or Heather Wagner at 341-2450.