Mobius is excited to announce that its executive director, Chad Butt, has been elected to serve on the Mentoring Partnership Advisory Council (MPAC) for MENTOR (the National Mentoring Partnership). Butt is one of 13 members on the council, which is made up of leaders from state or regional mentoring partnerships across the country.
“The members of MPAC serve as strategic advisors to MENTOR on a myriad of issues,” said Joellen Spacek, senior director of the Mentoring Partnership Network at MENTOR. “As a new MPAC member, Chad brings an awareness and deep understanding of the field of mentoring, demonstrates authenticity as a leader, and has contributed to enhancing the accountability and collaboration amongst the affiliate network of mentoring partnerships.” Butt has been the executive director of Mobius for more than three years, and led the organization’s successful transition from a regional agency into a statewide mentoring partnership in 2013. Prior to his time at Mobius, he was the program director for The DREAM Program, a mentoring organization that matches college students as mentors for youth living in affordable housing
communities. He is a 2004 graduate of Dartmouth College, and resides with his wife and daughter in Burlington.
MPAC provides MENTOR and the youth mentoring field with capacity-building expertise and strategic guidance on a variety of national initiatives and projects such as the development of a National Quality Mentoring System, resource development, public awareness, public policy and research. MPAC includes leaders from the network of affiliate Mentoring Partnerships who are selected through a peer nomination process.
Mobius is the Vermont affiliate of MENTOR, and is one of more than 25 state and regional organizations in MENTOR’s national network of affiliate Mentoring Partnerships. These affiliates are non-partisan, public-private organizations that galvanize local or statewide mentoring movements. They provide the leadership and infrastructure necessary to support the expansion of quality mentoring relationships.
According to the “Mentoring Effect,” a study released in 2014 by MENTOR, 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 fourth year as Vermont’s Mentoring Partnership, Mobius is a non-profit organization that supports more than 140 adult-to-youth mentoring program sites that serve 2,300 mentor pairs throughout the state. Through funding partnerships with the Vermont Department for Children and Families, the A.D. Henderson Foundation, and the Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children, Mobius provides more than $300,000 in grants to launch and support mentoring programs. 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, and works with programs to lead statewide mentoring initiatives. For more information about Mobius, and mentoring programs and initiatives in Vermont, visit www.mobiusmentors.org.