College Dreams

Mentoring Program

The College Dreams Mentoring Program is comprised of a Coalition including the Grants Pass Family YMCA/College Dreams Program, the Boys & Girls Club, Coalition for Kids, Three Rivers School District, and Grants Pass School District #7.

Our College Dreams Mentoring Program will serve 150 students in grades 4 through 8 at 5 middle school, 5 elementary school, and 2 youth program sites.

Students will be nominated by schools and community partners that serve children and families with serious, complex needs. Referrals will be screened with a research-based screening scale to identify students "most in need" based on the number of school dropout and delinquency risk factors.

Mentors will be thoroughly screened, oriented to school and agency sites, trained in key skills, monitored and supervised on site by our Mentoring Coordinator, Site Coordinators, and current Prevention Specialists.

Our project will provide year-round weekly individual mentoring, and group mentor/student activities such as cooperative team-building challenges, skill building, and educational/cultural outings.

Our Project Director has extensive experience in designing, managing and evaluating innovative projects for children, including a large school-based volunteer mentoring program for young elementary school students.

Our evaluation design incorporates a matched comparison group methodology, an array of key process measures and objective outcome indicators, and baseline and progress measures of mentor/student satisfaction, attendance, grade point averages, school discipline infractions, student academic effort, juvenile arrests, and other core outcome indicators.