Newsroom

The Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring was the subject of a recent journal article, "Innovation in Collaboration: The Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring as a university-community partnership" in Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement (Vol 4 p. 168-185). The Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring (SIYM) at Portland State University is an intensive week-long seminar designed to offer a highly interactive educational opportunity for experienced professionals and leading researchers in the field of youth mentoring. The current study explores the extent to which SIYM represents an example of a successful university-community partnership and identifies ways in which SIYM innovates on established partnership models.

To read the article, go to http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre/article/view/1771.

This article written by Jason Shim, Specialty Mentoring Program Facilitator at Pathways to Education, outlines what he and his collegues learned about communicating with youth. After wasting time trying to contact students via phone and e-mail, they learned that Facebook is now the primary online communication medium for the majority of youth in high school and that many students don't check their e-mail regularly while some don't even have an e-mail account. Shims outlines the six trends to know about engaging youth with social media based on their experiences and research.

For more information, go to http://www.nten.org/articles/2012/from-phones-to-facebook-how-to-engage-youth-on-the-front-lines-of-social-media.

January 16, 2012 will mark the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King once said, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'" MLK Day is a perfect opportunity for American's to honor King's legacy though service. Learn more about MLK Day of Service and how you can participate at http://mlkday.gov/index.php. 

President Barack Obama has issued a proclamation designating January as National Mentoring Month. January 2012 marks the 11th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, an annual media campaign to recruit volunteer mentors for young people. Spearheaded by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR and the Corporation for National and Community Service, this year’s campaign tagline is Invest in the Future. Mentor a Child.

To read President Obama's proclamation, go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/28/presidential-procl...

For more information on National Mentoring Month and to download materials, go to http://advancementoring.org/2012-national-mentoring-month.

Mentoring and juvenile justice professionals working in detention, corrections, probation, dependency courts, delinquency courts, and teen court/youth court diversion programs are encouraged to participate in an online survey funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The National Mentoring Partnership, Global Youth Justice, and the National Partnership for Juvenile Services are conducting the survey to improve the design and delivery of mentoring services for youth at risk for delinquency, alcohol and drug abuse, truancy, and other problem behaviors. Results will be included in a research report and in training and technical assistance materials, which will be free and available online. 

The survey is available online, and takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Take the survey online at www.surveymonkey.com/s/YouthMentoringSurvey.  

Information and materials from the OJJDP National Conference last October are now available at http://www.ojjdp.gov/2011conference/. To request conference presentation materials from grantee meetings, learning labs, and regular conference sessions, visit https://www.nttac.org/index.cfm?event=workshopsConferences.pastconferences. Download learning lab materials at www.nttac.org/index.cfm?event=conferenceOJJDP2011Labs_presentReq. 

On November 20th at 10 pm EST, MSNBC will premiere "Young Kids, Hard Time," a one-hour documentary narrated by Rick Springfield that reveals the reality of young kids serving long sentences in adult prisons. 

For more information, email info@calamariproductions.com. 

Foster students across California are benefiting from a database called Foster Focus, developed by the Sacramento County Office of Education. The database tracks foster students' grades, credits, course schedules, residential history, shot records, attendance, Individual Education Plan, the name of the child's social worker, and other information. Previously there had been problems of students being enrolled in classes that they had already taken because their records did not go with them from one school district to another. The database has made it much easier for officials to access students' records and make sure that they are enrolled in appropriate classes.

Read more at http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/10/06/2566653/new-database-tracks-californ....

The Harvard Family Research Project has redesigned and updated this dynamic web tool, originally a part of the OST Evaluation Snapshots series in 2005. The guide describes a select set of instruments and tools that can be obtained and used for on-the-ground program evaluation and is appropriate for first-time internal evaluations as well as large-scale national studies.

Access the evaluation tool at http://www.hfrp.org/out-of-school-time/publications-resources/measurement-tools-for-evaluating-out-of-school-time-programs-an-evaluation-resource2.

The Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs has created an online Web tool that allows users to search for federal grant opportunities by youth topic or federal agency on Grants.gov. The tool uses a filter to search for grants that are likely to fund youth programs. Grants.gov is a Web site that allows users to search and apply for thousands of federal grants.

To use the tool, go to www.findyouthinfo.gov/GrantsSearch.aspx.