About This Project

Youth in Chicago's poorest and most violent neighborhoods face many obstacles in their daily lives. The Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth mentoring program works to counteract those barriers to success and provide quality programming and counseling, increasing positive outcomes. We are raising money to build a stronger counseling base by hiring a counseling supervisor that will oversee clinical interns. We're also raising funds to provide bus fare to our mentors for transportation to the program.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Cross-age peer mentoring programs build relationships between high-school aged mentors and elementary school- aged mentees. They have been found to overcome the problems of other types of mentoring programs, such as generational differences, and are important to further evaluate. This specific project looks to increase mentor attendance by bolstering counseling services for our youth. Some youth in the program receive personal counseling through the program to address mental health issues and other concerns that arise from living in low-income, high-violence neighborhoods. The money we raise will be used for improving the counseling sector of our project so that we may offer better service and promote mentor attendance and retention.

What is the significance of this project?

Cross-age peer-mentoring programs are more effective than traditional adult-led programs because using youth within the same community as mentors provide more opportunities to connect. Our youth face a number of barriers to attending our weekly mentoring sessions, such as lack of transportation funds and family responsibilities. We hope that by raising funds for counseling and transportation, more mentors can attend the program and receive the support they need to thrive despite the obstacles they face. We are still in the process of assessing the effects of the program, but data analyses have shown that improved attendance increases the quality of friendships, feelings of safety, awareness of available activities, and positive attitudes towards other youth (in boys).

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this study is to evaluate a community-based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes and increase protective factors among African-American and Latino youth from 7 sites serving 3 low-income, high violence neighborhoods using youth mentors from the same high-risk environments. The milestones we hope to reach is establishing relationships within the community, conduct a mentoring program for one year, then find a community organization to sustain the program.

Sites meets once a week with research staff present. Mentors and mentees participate in activities designed to educate and build life skills as well as the mentoring relationship. Youth outcomes are assessed using surveys completed at baseline, 6-mo, and 12-mo timepoints.