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Changing Lives |
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Compassion Spotlight
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The Need
As many as 15 million young people are at risk of not reaching productive adulthood -- falling prey to crime, drugs, and other problems that make it difficult to obtain an education, successfully enter the workforce, or otherwise contribute to society. 1
Two million children have at least one parent incarcerated in a State or Federal prison.
The percentage of babies born out-of-wedlock has increased more than six fold since 1960. Children growing up in single-parent families are significantly more likely to perform poorly in school, drop out of school, engage in criminal activities, abuse alcohol and drugs, have out-of-wedlock children, and live in poverty.
There are over 800,000 youth gang members in America today.
The Response
The President’s vision for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative has placed faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) at the center of a range of Federal efforts to guide at-risk youth away from harmful choices and toward opportunity and achievement. These groups are often uniquely able to reach at-risk youth in their own communities by drawing upon dedicated volunteers and other caring adults to provide instruction and guidance in a way that traditional government programs alone rarely could. Faith-based organizations are a vital part of any such effort. In 2005, 43 percent of all volunteers engaged in mentoring youth did so in or through religious organizations.2
Mentoring
In 2002 President Bush announced the creation of the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program. The goal of MCP is to partner with locally-rooted organizations across America to match 100,000 children of incarcerated parents with caring, dependable mentors who can share life skills and provide personalized support. Since MCP was launched:
$257 million has been competitively awarded to organizations in 49 States and Puerto Rico. More than 440 three-year grants have been awarded to 320 grantees—most of which are FBCOs.
Nearly 90,000 children have entered into nurturing relationships with mentors, with more than 30,000 matches in FY 2007 alone.
Of the MCP youth surveyed in 2006 and 2007, 85 percent and 90 percent respectively reported that they had either a “good” or “very good” relationship with their mentors.
Beginning in 2008, the MCP program is offering vouchers to the families of children of prisoners so that they can enroll their children in accredited mentoring programs of their choice, allowing these services to reach communities that do not have MCP-funded grants. More information is available at http://www.mentoring.org/find_resources/caregiverschoice. 
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) engages in a range of efforts to match at-risk youth with mentors and strengthen programs serving youth across the Nation.
In FY 2007, CNCS devoted more than $300 million to help support mentoring, tutoring and other services to about 598,000 children and youth, including 47,000 children of prisoners.
In FY 2007, AmeriCorps State and National programs supported participants at organizations that mentored and provided related support services to 220,000 children.
In FY 2007, AmeriCorps VISTA members worked on anti-poverty projects that served more than 45,000 children. VISTA members build the capacity of FBCOs to increase the number of people they serve and the quality of their services.
In FY 2007, participants in the RSVP program provided or supported the mentoring or other care services for more than 100,000 children.
In addition to MCP and CNCS programs, a range of other efforts have worked to connect at-risk youth with caring mentors. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has awarded funds to support:
Team Focus, a program that focuses on boys without fathers, which has matched 1,100 youth in 28 States with caring mentors. For more information, visit http://www.teamfocusonline.org/
National Network of Youth Ministries, which has recruited almost 1,500 Mentoring Recruitment Ambassadors, who are volunteers drawn from local FBCOs that seek to recruit at least five other mentors from their organizations. Learn more about the work of National Network of Youth Ministries
Big Brothers/Big Sisters’ Amachi program, which has partnered 121 Amachi-affiliates with more than 1,000 churches to serve over 4,000 children. See more information about the Amachi Program at http://www.amachimentoring.org
Gang Reduction and other Efforts
The Gang Reduction Program is a four-city pilot program funded by DOJ designed to build city-wide networks of FBCOs and other community partners to reduce crime and provide youth and their families with healthy alternatives to gang involvement.
DOJ’s Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative operates in 10 US Attorneys’ districts in partnership with FBCOs to run prevention programs for youth at risk of joining gangs, as well as reentry programs for adjudicated gang members.
Helping America’s Youth (HAY) is a Presidential Initiative, led by First Lady Laura Bush, to raise awareness about the challenges facing youth, particularly at-risk boys, and to motivate caring adults to connect with youth through family, school, and community. A national HAY conference and six regional conferences held throughout the country highlighted best practices designed to help at-risk youth reach positive outcomes and promoted cross-community collaboration among FBCOs and other key partners. The “Community Guide to Helping America's Youth,” available at www.helpingamericasyouth.gov, is an online resource to help assess community needs, map resources, and build community-wide collaboration around top models of research-based, youth-serving programs.
CNCS’s Learn and Serve America program in FY 2007 engaged approximately 500,000 children in community service activities through service learning programs at schools where the majority of children receive free or reduced price lunches.
Community Empowering Youth under the Compassion Capital Fund provides capacity-building grants to strengthen existing coalitions and expand the capabilities of FBCOs working to combat gang activity, youth violence, and child abuse and neglect in their communities. In FY 2006 and 2007, $37.5 million in grants were awarded to 131 projects in 39 States and Puerto Rico.
1 Federal agencies have adopted a variety of definitions for what constitutes “at risk.”
2 2005 Volunteer Supplement to the BLS/Census Current Population Survey, available at http://www.census.gov/cps/
