Sharing Web Resources

This week I explored NBCDI- National Black Child Development Institute (www.nbcdi.org).  Under the Who We Are tab, you will find out the history of this organization as well as the mission statement. 

For 38 years, Evelyn K. Moore, who got her start as a teacher in the groundbreaking Perry Pre-school/High Scope program, which became the model for Head Start, led NBCDI.  She has dedicated her entire professional career to improving outcomes for our society’s most vulnerable children. Her leadership was followed by that of renowned early childhood educator, writer and leader, Carol Brunson Day, who led NBCDI from 2007 to 2011.  NBCDI’s current President and CEO is Dr. Felicia DeHaney.

As I scrolled through the resources, the article that caught my attention was “A Call for Change: A Preliminary Blueprint to Improve Educational Excellence and Opportunity for African American Males in Urban Public Schools”.  I am always concerned about our youth, but especially young black males.  These children have so many strikes against them and I feel as if they are never given a fair chance.  My husband is a part of the Big Brother program here in GA and I am going through the process to become a Big Sister.  The both of us have fallen in love with his little brother and he has improved in many areas in the past three years.  All he needed was someone to take an interest in him and guide him.

There is a section in the paper on Developing and Overseeing Mentoring Programs.  It gives suggestions on ways urban schools can work with these different programs.

Urban schools should:

1.     Determine goals for a mentoring program meant to assist African American males either academically or otherwise, and decide whether the mentoring will be one-on-one, group, community or school-based, or some combination of approaches. Ensure that the design of a mentoring program reflects best practices in matching mentors and students based on relevant criteria.

2.     Clarify that mentors do not have the roles of tutors or disciplinarians. Mentors need to have a trusting relationship with young African American males. School staff should be informed of what this role is and what it is not.

3.     Have the mentorship program target problem and high-risk behaviors (e.g., delinquency or violence, drug use, absenteeism or high suspension rates) exhibited by African American males who may lack responsible male adults in their lives.

4.     Recruit responsible African American adult mentors from the community to pair with district students before and after school and on weekends. Set up clear screening procedures and background checks for mentors and professional development to support their relationships with African American male students.

5.     Carefully match mentors with young African American mentees based on interests, goals, demographic similarities, interview results, and other factors. Enlist the support and assistance of school administrators, counselors, and social workers in identifying students for mentoring and to coordinate efforts.

6.     Mentoring activities with young African American males should include such key activities as exposing them to higher education and career paths, personal relationship building, joint reading and discussion sessions, and sports and recreation.

7.     Provide professional development for mentors throughout their relationship with their young African American male charges, and ensure that mentors are in touch with their organizations at least monthly to discuss progress and challenges.

8.     Require a mentoring relationship with young African American males of at least 12 months and ideally of three years. Care must be taken to ensure that the relationship does not end with the student thinking that he has been abandoned (again) or that it has ended because of something he did or did not do.

9.     Set up special parent training workshops, particularly for single mothers who may be having difficulty with their African American sons, on how to be a positive role model and catalyst in lives of their male children. Other workshops might include relationship building, monitoring, stable home environments, drug prevention, avoiding violence, effective parent- child communications, gang involvement, and the value of staying in school.