Innovation in Effective Compassion Home > Changing Lives > Targeting Human Needs > At-Risk Youth

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	FBCI Spotlight on Compassion
	More than 107,000 children of prisoners were matched with a caring mentor through FBCOs and other groups funded by the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program. In 2007, 90% of the MCP youth surveyed reported that they had either a “good” or “very good” relationship with their mentors. DOJ’s Gang Reduction Program in Richmond, VA partnered with more than 100 FBCOs to serve at-risk youth, helping to reduce property crime by 30% in 2006 and by another 30% in 2007. In FY 2005, the Corporation for National and Community Service’s Learn and Serve America program engaged almost 500,000 at-risk children in service learning programs.

The Need
The Response
   Mentoring
   Gang Reduction and other Efforts

The Need

• As many as 15 million youth are at risk of not reaching productive adulthood falling prey to crime, drugs, and other problems that make it difficult to obtain an education or successfully enter the workforce.¹
• Nearly 2 million children have at least one parent incarcerated in a State or Federal prison.
• The number of babies born out of wedlock has increased more than sixfold since 1960.
• Children growing up in single-parent families and families with at least one incarcerated parent are more likely to perform poorly in school, drop out of school, engage in criminal activities, abuse alcohol and drugs, have children out of wedlock, and live in poverty.
• More than 800,000 youths belong to gangs.

The Response

The President’s vision for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) places faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) at the center of a range of Federal efforts to help guide at-risk youth away from harmful choices and toward opportunity and achievement. These groups are able to reach at-risk youth in their own communities by drawing on dedicated volunteers and other caring adults to offer instruction, guidance, and support that may not be provided by traditional government programs. Faith-based organizations are a vital part of this effort. For example, in 2005, 43% of all volunteers mentoring youth did so within or through religious organizations. ² In 2007, more than half of all federal Mentoring Children of Prisoners program grantees were, or partnered with, faith-based organizations.

Mentoring

In 2003, President Bush announced the creation of the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program. By 2008, MCP had partnered with locally rooted organizations across America to reach its goal of matching 100,000 children of incarcerated parents with caring, dependable mentors. Since MCP was launched:

• $257 million has been competitively awarded to organizations in all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
• More than 440 three-year grants have been awarded to 320 grantees—most of which are FBCOs.
• More than 107,000 matches have been created since the program's inception in 2003. This includes 3,008 children who redeemed vouchers through the Caregivers Choice program. Beginning in 2008, the MCP program is offering vouchers to the families of children of prisoners to enroll their children in accredited mentoring programs of their choice. More information available at visit http://www.mentoring.org/find_resources/caregiverschoice.

• In 2006 and 2007, 85% and 90%, respectively, of the MCP youth surveyed reported that they had either a “good” or “very good” relationship with their mentors.

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 country. 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.
• AmeriCorps State and National programs supported participants at organizations mentoring and providing related support services to 220,000 children.
• AmeriCorps VISTA members who build the capacity of FBCOs worked on anti-poverty projects that serving more than 45,000 children.
• 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, other efforts are working 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 focusing on boys without fathers, which has matched 1,100 youth in 28 States with caring mentors. 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. Visit 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. Visit 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.

• The Richmond VA site has partnered with over 100 FBCOs. These partnerships have played an important role in major crime reductions in the targeted area. In 2006, there was a 30% drop in property crime and a 50% reduction in homicides; in 2007, property crime fell another 30% and homicides dropped an additional 22%.

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.

• The Dallas-Ft. Worth site reports that of the 1,697 youth (both at-risk youth and former gang members) who completed its prevention program, none have been charged with a crime/new crime and a large majority have improved their school attendance and family relationships. In addition, 97.5% of those participating in its prisoner reentry program have not been rearrested for a new offense. Significantly, assaults with firearms decreased 55% in the target area in the first six months of 2008 compared to the same time in 2007.

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. 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 programs serving youth.

• The President signed an Executive Order on February 7, 2008, formally establishing the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs, a coalition of Federal agencies that will continue their work to support communities and organizations that help our Nation’s youth.

CNCS’s Learn and Serve America program engaged approximately 500,000 children in FY 2007 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. From 2006 to 2008, approximately $90 million in grants were awarded to 131 projects in 39 States and Puerto Rico.

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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/