Mentoring is a series of collaborative activities and conversations between young people and older or more experienced persons (i.e., mentors) who are acting in a helping capacity to provide support that benefits one or more areas of the young person's development. This resource offers those who develop and implement mentoring services meaningful…

MENTOR's cornerstone publication, the "Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring[TM]", details research-informed and practitioner-approved Standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs and consequently, impactful mentoring relationships. This Fourth Edition, released in 2015, reflects the most up-to-date…

As a strategy for helping young people succeed in school, work and life, mentoring works. It helps give young people the confidence, resources and support they need to achieve their potential. The fact is this: these positive outcomes are only possible when young people are engaged in high-quality mentoring relationships. The "Elements of…

A three-step process for developing a program to help youth learn independent living skills is described. The steps are: (1) identifying and ranking specific skills; (2) developing curriculum packages; and (3) involving adults from the local community to help teach those skills to youth. A list of 20 independent living skills is offered along with…

Research suggests eight universal features that should be present in all youth development programs. Each feature is named and described, opposite poles are noted, and camp-specific actions to incorporate the feature are listed. A flow chart presents a series of questions to help camp administrators determine whether these features are present in…

Panda bears are the theme of this guide which includes many reading-related activities, crafts, and programs on a broad range of topics, and which can be expanded to other theme approaches such as endangered species, bears in general, and the concept of black and white. The program begins with a general definition and discussion of goals,…

This issue brief discusses the benefits of mentoring for youth with disabilities and strategies for encouraging mentoring. It begins by discussing research that has demonstrated the effectiveness of mentoring and different types of mentoring, including a new model of electronic mentoring that is increasing in popularity. A chart shows how…

Drawing from Public/Private Ventures (P/PV's) five years of hands-on experience designing and implementing Amachi programs around the country, "Building From The Ground Up" describes best practices for planning, developing and managing a mentoring-children-of-prisoners program. This guidebook is essential for learning the professional procedures,…

This manual for supervisors in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) provides background on SYEP and tips on program supervision. Section 1 is a brief introduction. The history and purpose of SYEP are presented in section 2. Section 3 contains nine SYEP supervisor work rules (concerning time records, safety, accidents and illness,…

This booklet is designed to give Peace Corps country directors, staff, and volunteers ideas and examples of how they can assist youth-at-risk through government agencies and private organizations working with youth in their host countries. It begins with an overview of the problems of youth-at-risk, followed by six scenarios. Each scenario is…

The Learning Fund Program sponsored by PENMAS, the Indonesian Directorate of Community Education, successfully uses community-based learning activities to promote entrepreneurship and managerial skills among Indonesia's rural poor. Currently, the program integrates the learning, financial, and equipment resources necessary to help over 5,400 small…

This document contains (1) a monograph investigating and describing conditions under which it is cost-beneficial to operate an enriched YCCIP (Youth Community Conservation and Improvement Project) design and (2) a guidebook to work project enrichment. The first sections of the monograph focus on the attributes of an enriched YCCIP activity in…

This manual is intended to assist managers of Great Britain's Youth Training Scheme (YTS) programs in designing a coherent, integrated training program that is based on training methods that are (1) suited to the individual learning styles of trainees and (2) designed to help students understand the connections between different components of the…

This manual for training supervisors in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) contains a set of guidelines and suggestions organized into seven sections. Section 1 is a brief introduction. Section 2 describes determining training needs and contains a sample task statement. Section 3 covers designing the training program. It includes an…

The intent of this manual is to provide some templates and direction to schools that are looking for ideas of how to incorporate work experience into their curriculum for youth with disabilities. Hamilton Middle School served as a pilot site for one of the Rural Institute Transition Projects from 2006-2008. The school administration eagerly…