Thanks to our Technical Assistance Partners!

MENTOR Independence Region works with hundreds of organizations each year to help strengthen their mentoring strategies. Sometimes that work is with formalized mentoring programs seeking to strengthen their practices or programming. Sometime the work is about building the skills of the adults in relationship rich spaces to better connect with young people. Sometimes it’s about making our work more youth-centric and responsive to the contemporary needs of our young people.

One way that allows us to support programs that want to improve their mentoring strategies is through Technical Assistance. Through “No-Cost Technical Assistance”, programs can request the help of our amazing team members to go more deeply into an opportunity for program improvement. With an agreed-upon scope of a project, our team will work with the organization over an estimated four-month period to help build the capacity of organization’s work.

This exciting opportunity to get help is offered at NO COST to organizations, because it is funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs through the National Mentoring Resource Center. The National Mentoring Resource center is an excellent tool for mentoring research and best practices and is the vehicle through which organizations “Request No-Cost Technical Assistance.” This amazing opportunity is offered throughout the calendar year.

We wanted to take a moment to shout out the amazing programs that we worked with this year through No-Cost Technical Assistance! We’re sending a big THANK YOU to:
– Community Angel Foundation – a post-pandemic pivot to virtual mentoring prompted the Community Angel Foundation to reach out to get support for a virtual mentoring model.
– Eluna – Eluna supports children and families impacted by grief and addiction, and they engaged us to support their efforts to ensure all mentors are getting the preparation needed to show up for their young people.
– Valley Youth House (Bucks County) – Valley Youth House supports young people who have experience in the foster care system to build their future. VYH reached out to us for help adopting the latest best practices in onboarding and training.
– We helped to build the capacity of the Academic Support Volunteers with the School District or Philadelphia’s Office of Strategic Partnerships to ensure they had the preparation and knowledge needed to best support students in the classroom.
– We supported the School Safety Mentoring Program, run by the Office of School Safety, in researching group mentoring curricula to support mentors of younger students.
– Church World Service Lancaster is implementing a mentoring program to support immigrant and refugee youth to building community connections and support and reached out to us for support in learning and implementing best mentoring practices.
– The Urban Technology Project supports young adults by engaging them in Information Technology apprenticeships and mentoring. We helped them to adopt best practices in supporting mentoring matches that improve the impact of those relationships.
– Coatesville Area Juvenile Alliance reached out ahead of the expansion of their mentoring efforts, a compliment to their many services supporting young people with experience with the Justice System.

One of our partners said, “this process is an amazing value, and I wish more people knew about it!” Another partner said “This is exactly what we need to get to the next level. Thank you, MENTOR Independence Region, for your partnership!” A special Thank You to these great partners for your commitment to mentoring and the young people in our community! We are humbled to contribute to your work!

If you’d like to get more information about No-Cost Technical Assistance, reach out to our team at [email protected]. Or, if you’re ready to put in that request, get started here! We look forward to the opportunity to support your mentoring efforts!