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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
Program Assessment

Program

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Mentoring Children of Prisoners

The program aims to establish and maintain relationships between children at high risk of future incarceration because one or both parents of their parents is incarcerated and adult mentors to help them succeed in school and life. The program funds grantees that implement the program locally.

Rating

What This Rating Means

NOT PERFORMING
Results Not Demonstrated

A rating of Results Not Demonstrated (RND) indicates that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing.
  • Research shows that mentoring is a promising strategy for the reduction of risk behaviors. The program is designed to specifically target children of prisoners, approximately 2 million children, who, without intervention, are highly susceptible to future incarceration.
  • Data from the close of Fiscal Year 2007 shows that the program has made a total of 70,425 matches since the program's inception. The program remains on track to achieve 100,000 matches by the end of FY 2008.
  • The program is still too new in its development to demonstrate measurable results. A meaningful performance goal to assess the quality of the mentoring relationships as demonstrated by positive youth outcomes has been developed, but longitudinal evaluative data is needed.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Recalibrating targets and timeframes to reflect feasible targets and re-examining the funding model and unit cost indicators to determine the resources needed to achieve new targets.
  • Assessing and improving grantees' abilities to achieve positive youth outcomes by using analysis to inform program development and the provision of targeted technical assistance.
  • Conducting surveys among a major subset of children in the program to measure their perception of the quality of mentor relationships, and beginning site selection for the outcome evaluation.

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