The US Department of Justice Identifies Great Life Mentoring as a Program That Works
The United States Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), headed by the Assistant Attorney General, provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. Their work includes having a central, credible resource to inform practitioners and policymakers about what works in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services: CrimeSolutions.gov.
This searchable online database of evidence-based programs is a tool to understand, access and integrate scientific evidence about programs into programmatic and policy decisions. It includes information on nearly 600 programs and assigns “evidence ratings” – effective, promising, or no effects — to indicate whether there is evidence from research that a program achieves its goals.
Great Life Mentoring, an innovative and replaceable intervention that utilizes trained community volunteers as mentors to enhance mental health outcomes for children from low-resource families, has been identified with an evidence rating of Effective - the highest of the three ratings. Fewer than 100 programs have received this rating.
This is a one-on-one mentoring program in which youth referred from community mental health agencies receive support from adult volunteers with whom they spend time doing positive community activities. The program provides a curriculum-based training and ongoing case-management support to volunteers, helping them to be successful mentors.
The intervention was shown to be associated with a statistically significant increase in global functioning and a lower likelihood of an unplanned and client-initiated ending of mental health treatment.
Great Life Mentoring is also being included in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Model Programs Guide.
Community volunteers are currently needed from the Portland, Or and Vancouver, WA areas. Apply now, and know your time is proven to be “effective” in the life of a child facing adversity.
To implement the Great Life Mentoring model for children receiving mental health services in your community, contact Elizabeth Higley at greatlifementoring@gmail.com