New solicitations for federal mentoring grants could be announced in the next few weeks and months from several federal agencies - although little is set in stone given that a new Congress and president will take office in January amid unpredictable economic and budgetary circumstances.

This trickle of information came during a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Federal Mentoring Council (FMC) earlier this month. The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)-run consortium of federal agencies coordinates policies and initiatives around ensuring that youth have supportive and caring adults in their lives.

Established in May 2006 and convening quarterly, the FMC includes representatives of the U.S. departments of Education, Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development, Defense and Agriculture. The meeting was chaired by Kristin McSwain, CNCS chief of program operations.

At the recent meeting, FMC members briefly discussed mentoring grants, including a forthcoming request for proposal (RFP) for Learn and Serve funding that CNCS plans to release in January. It will include school-based mentoring as an allowable activity.

Curtis Porter, director of the Youth Development Division in the HHS Family and Youth Services Bureau, said in a telephone hookup to the meeting that the federal Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) solicitation will be released this spring. He said the program, which started in 2003, hit a milestone in 2008: 110,000 youth-adult matches. MCP has funded more than 320 faith-based and community organizations, in addition to states, tribes and other entities, HHS officials said. A total of $45 million was provided to support 215 mentoring programs in 2008, but the 2009 amount for MCP is not yet known.

Nancy Ayers, from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said several mentoring solicitations could be coming out soon, but the timing, amount and other details were far from settled.

McSwain said in a November interview that the FMC hopes to standardize language around mentoring in the federal grant solicitations that touch on this activity. She also said the council is preparing to release a new report in January that includes case studies of effective mentoring programs.

At the meeting, she announced a new website – http://www.nationalmentoringmonth.org – designed to coordinate January's National Mentoring Month volunteer-recruitment and other activities. The site features a public service announcement by retired Gen. Colin Powell and resources for local mentoring organizations. President-elect Barack Obama also cut a mentoring-month print ad for ServiceNation, one of several mentoring-related news and resource items highlighted on the new site. 

A majority of likely voters support increasing funds for after-school program, according to a new poll commissioned by the Afterschool Alliance, which used the findings to urge newly elected lawmakers and Democratic President-elect Barack Obama to boost these resources in the coming year. 

Nearly nine out of 10 likely registered voters said that after-school programs are important, given the dangers of modern society.  Men’s intensity of support for after-school programs increased by 10 percent in 2008, with 63 percent “strongly” agreeing with the need for after school, compared with 53 percent in the alliance’s 2006 poll. Majorities of Democrats (94 percent), Independents (83 percent) and Republicans (71 percent) said they supported organized activities or safe places for children and teens to go when school is out.

Majorities of both Obama voters as well as those who voted for Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said they “strongly” backed after-school. Seventy-six percent of those polled said the incoming 111th Congress should increase after-school funding. 

The alliance wants to see funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CLC), the main federal after-school program, more than doubled to its full authorization level of $2.5 billion. Three in four voters – or 76 percent – said that after-school programs are an “absolute” necessity for their communities.  

The survey, conducted in early November by Lake Research Partners with analysis help from The Tarrance Group, reached 1,200 likely registered voters via landline phones and cell phones. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percent.

Contact: Afterschool Alliance (202) 347-2030 or (866) KIDS-TODAY.

The Finance Project
32 pages. Free.

This brief explores three strategies for financing and sustaining mentoring programs and services: building partnerships with businesses and foundations, conducting community fundraising to generate revenue, and maximizing public revenue. Included is information on 25 federal funding sources. www.financeproject.org/publications/FindingResources-MentoringPrograms.pdf.

Beefed-up training and easy reporting systems are the keys.

Because of the close ties they develop with youths, volunteer mentors and tutors sometimes learn about disturbing aspects of those kids' lives, such as abuse and neglect. But even though many agencies require volunteers to report abuse suspicions, and some states mandate it, many volunteers are reluctant to do so or don't know how.

Gary Kosman, CEO of the America Learns Network, saw the problem during a 2003-04 pilot program, in which volunteers recorded their work through an online log provided by the network. Some agencies found that volunteers were reporting suspected abuse in random places in the online logs, such as in text boxes where they discussed the youths and their activities with them, rather than immediately alerting supervisors in person.

Because the notations were not always read immediately, investigations into possible abuse or neglect were delayed, putting the youths at continued risk.
That prompted Kosman to make some changes in America Learns' reporting system. In a recent seminar he conducted on the Web, Kosman urged other youth groups to do more to make sure volunteers have an easy way to recognize suspected abuse and immediately report it to their supervisors.

"If we're going to rely on volunteers to do the work of professionals, then those volunteers better have the competencies that they need to deliver on the promises we're making to these kids," he said during the late-summer Web seminar he organized.

America Learns is a California-based for-profit network that offers products aimed at improving and evaluating tutoring, mentoring and teacher education programs.

Kosman told seminar participants that better tools are needed to overcome the reluctance of volunteer mentors and tutors to report suspected abuse.

Required to Report?
According to "Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect," a report by the Child Welfare Information Gateway (a federal clearinghouse funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), 18 states require anyone to report suspected abuse and neglect to authorities. Sixteen of those states specify certain professionals who must report, generally including workers with regular responsibilities caring for youth.

Many agencies have mandatory reporting requirements for staff and volunteers. "For liability reasons, I would have your volunteers trained to be mandated reporters, regardless if it's required by state law," Jovanna Centre, community-based program coordinator at Friends of Children of Walla Walla, Wash., said in an online discussion.

But covering reporting requirements in pre-service training is not enough to overcome the reporting aversion of some volunteers, Kosman said. "We cannot assume that the mandatory reporting portion [of the pre-service training] is going to stick," he said in an interview.

Tools and Training
To make reporting easier for volunteers, America Learns updated its online reporting system to create a check-box system for volunteers to report abuse. When someone clicks on that box, an e-mail marked "urgent" is immediately sent to supervisors and other designated staff members at the youth-serving agency who can then investigate the report. The agencies can add the check box to the regular session logs, time logs or reporting forms that volunteers fill out.

Centre cautioned against relying too heavily on such a system. "I don't like the check-box tool," she said in an interview, because it might lead volunteers to think the problems they see are isolated and make them less likely to report suspicions.

Instead, Friends of Walla Walla, which operates school-based mentoring programs, uses ongoing training and frequent staff contacts with volunteers so they understand that if they see something amiss, they are probably not the only ones.

To overcome volunteer reporting reticence, Centre said the director of Washington's Division of Children and Family Services personally explains the abuse-complaint process in detail during training, which tends to put volunteers at ease. In addition, during monthly trainings on topics requested by volunteers, law enforcement officials sometimes talk about family substance abuse and domestic violence, she said.

Walla Walla uses a paper-based system for volunteers to report suspected abuse.

Because new volunteers are often shocked by the way some poor families live, Centre said, they need to be taught "what poverty looks like," so that they don't mistake all hard-scrabble living conditions for maltreatment.

Contact: America Learns (310) 689-0542, http://americalearns.net; Friends of Walla Walla (509) 527-4745, www.wallawallafriends.org.

The Council on Accreditation (COA) – an independent organization based in New York – last month released quality standards for after-school programs and services and is inviting feedback until Oct. 15.
COA took over the accreditation practice for the National AfterSchool Association.

The after-school standards are in three different sections: After School Program Administration, After School Human Resources and After School Programming and Services.

COA set up a new website where organizations can view the standards. A survey page has been set up for offering input.

After Oct. 15, COA will review and incorporate feedback.

Contact: Council on Accreditation (212) 797-3000.