Silver Lining Mentoring Inc
Silver Lining Mentoring Inc
Silver Lining Mentoring Inc
Programs
Community Based Mentoring
Community Based Mentoring (CBM) provides youth with one-to-one volunteer mentor relationships and the support of SLM’s clinically-trained staff. For many youths, their mentor is the only consistent adult in their lives who is not paid to spend time with them, such as a teacher or social worker. Mentors meet youth in the communities where they live, eliminating geographic barriers. Mentor/mentee matches meet for a minimum of eight hours per month, engaging in activities that encourage skills development and build strong relationships. In addition, mentors and mentees can attend group events with other SLM matches, developing positive peer relationships and building community. SLM’s program model addresses the unique risk factors of youth in foster care, who have experienced the trauma of the loss of home and community and often multiple foster placements. SLM works to ensure that a youth’s relationship with a mentor will not end in another rejection or loss. Mentors must attend an information session, an interview with SLM’s social workers, and training on the effects of trauma, abuse and neglect, attachment, and cultural responsiveness. SLM’s intensive screening and training pays off: the average length of an SLM mentoring relationship is over three years, compared to the national average of nine months. Clinically-trained staff directly support each match, providing resources and services as needed to prevent disruption in a youth’s involvement in CBM. For mentors, SLM offers peer support, allowing mentors to come together to ask questions, discuss challenges, and build community. SLM ensures program quality in a number of ways. As a founding partner of Mass Mentoring Partnership’s Quality-Based Mentoring Initiative, SLM adheres to a positive youth development framework. SLM also utilizes the Elements of Effective Practice for mentoring and incorporates trauma-informed practices. SLM’s clinical staff team is well prepared to understand the effects of trauma, abuse, and neglect and thus to work effectively with youth in foster care. Clinically trained program staff members implement evidence-based methods that are effective for work with youth in foster care, which helps prolong young engagement and promote success in the program. SLM ensures that professional development opportunities are part of every program staff member’s work plan. Staff are supported and expected to participate in ongoing trainings on cultural responsiveness, the effects of trauma, and research- and evidence-based interventions and best practices for mentoring and working with youth in foster care.GeographiesBoston, MA, USADatesNot indicatedSourceUser-generatedHuman servicesChildren and youth,At-risk youth190$913.7KLearn & Earn
Learn & Earn is an intensive life skills curriculum with mentoring and asset-building components for youth ages 16 and older. Silver Lining Mentoring uses a site-based model for Learn & Earn. SLM partners with other local organizations serving youth in foster care to bring the program to the residential facilities where youth live. Partner agencies recruit youth to participate in the program and provide space for weekly meetings. Silver Lining Mentoring brings in the Learn & Earn curriculum, volunteer mentors, and its staff to facilitate the program. All youth are paired with a volunteer mentor who helps them with the Learn & Earn curriculum and provides ongoing support. Mentors participate in an in-depth screening and training, facilitated by SLM’s staff, to ensure they can best support a young person with experience in foster care. For 12 weeks the youth, mentors, and SLM’s staff meet for weekly life skills workshops on employment skills and financial literacy. After those 12 weeks, all youth are encouraged and supported to remain involved with SLM and transition to the Community Based Mentoring program to continue working toward their individual educational and independent living goals for a minimum of one year. One of the unique aspects of Learn & Earn is that the young people earn a stipend for consistent participation in the program. With this earned money youth have paid rent college tuition, and purchased laptops for schoolwork and professional clothing, meeting critical needs for their transition to independent adulthood.GeographiesBoston, MA, USADatesNot indicatedSourceUser-generatedHuman servicesChildren and youth,At-risk youth50$418.4KSilver Lining Institute
As a result of the unprecedented outcomes SLM has achieved with young people over the years, Silver Lining receives many inquiries every month from organizations across the country who want to learn how to effectively mentor and support youth in foster care. The Silver Lining Institute (SLI) was created in 2019 to meet the demand from the field for population-specific expertise to improve access to high-quality mentoring for youth in foster care nationwide. The Silver Lining Institute takes a three-pronged approach to its work: The first prong, which has been the core of SLI’s work to date, works with direct service agencies. The Institute teaches mentoring organizations how to effectively serve youth in foster care, and helps foster care organizations learn how to run high-quality mentoring programs. This work indirectly impacts the lives of approximately 10,000 each year. The second prong involves systems change work: SLI partners with child welfare systems, government agencies, and policymakers to help change the way supports are structured for youth in foster care and demonstrate the low-cost, high-impact value that mentoring provides. The third prong, which hasn’t yet begun, will be a public education campaign to ignite a paradigm shift in the way this country thinks about young people in foster care. SLI will share our strengths-based approach to serving this resilient population in order to inspire lay people to action. By educating the public, SLI will build a movement of allies and advocates who will step up to volunteer as mentors and engage in multiple forms of support for youth in foster care nationwide.GeographiesUnited StatesDatesNot indicatedSourceUser-generatedInformation and communications,Education,Human servicesChildren and youth,Adults,At-risk youth10K$704.6K
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