Vermont Business Magazine Mobius is excited to announce the start of the 2017-2018 Vermont Mentoring Grants application process. These annual grants are designed to support new and existing mentoring programs in Vermont that match adult volunteers as mentors for youth mentees (ages 5-22) in long-term, one-to-one, quality-based mentoring relationships.
The Vermont Mentoring Grants have traditionally been made possible through support from the A.D. Henderson Foundation, the Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children, and the Vermont Department for Children and Families. During the 2016-2017 grant year, Mobius and its three funding partners awarded 33 grants, totaling more than $324,000, to support 101 new and existing mentoring program sites, and nearly 1,900 adult-to-youth mentor pairs in communities across Vermont.
Potential applicants should contact Mobius at[email protected]. Applications are due byJuly 28. For more information about the grant guidelines, and how to apply, please visit www.mobiusmentors.org/vermont-mentoring-grants.
This year’s grants are designed to provide continuing support for established programs that demonstrate they meet best practices, assist the planning of new programs, and support programs in their first or second year of implementation.
All successful 2017-2018 grantees will commit to participating in Mobius’ K-12 Mentoring Initiative by collaborating with Mobius and other programs in their region to ensure that the youth they serve have the opportunity to continue meeting with their mentors through high school graduation. Additionally, grantees will demonstrate they are meeting best practices through the Quality Mentoring System (a program assessment system developed by Mobius and MENTOR, The National Mentoring Partnership).
Starting this grant cycle, all applicants will be asked to commit to tracking and evaluating their program data through a Results-Based Accountability (RBA) process. Lastly, all funded programs will continue to use common questions from the Vermont Mentoring Surveys to survey their mentors and mentees, and track youth outcome data in the following key areas: resiliency; pro-social skills; future aspirations; connectedness to community; and attitude toward school.
According to the “Mentoring Effect,” a study released in 2014 by MENTOR (The National Mentoring Partnership), one in three youth in Vermont will enter adulthood without having a formal or informal mentoring relationship with a caring adult. The results of national studies by MENTOR and Big Brothers Big Sisters illustrate that a mentor can enhance a young person’s learning skills and help him or her build resiliency and pro-social skills. Youth with mentors are less likely to engage in risky behavior with drugs and alcohol, are more likely to develop positive relationships with peers and adults, and more likely to pursue college and other post-secondary opportunities.
Now in its fifth year as Vermont’s Mentoring Partnership, Mobius supports approximately 140 adult-to-youth mentoring program sites that serve 2,300 mentor pairs throughout the state. In addition to managing the Vermont Mentoring Grants, Mobius also offers technical support to program staff, maintains an online program directory and referral system for volunteers, manages a quality-based program management database, raises public awareness of mentoring, works with programs to ensure they are meeting best practices, and leads statewide mentoring initiatives. For more information about Mobius, and mentoring programs and initiatives in Vermont, visit www.mobiusmentors.org.