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Causes: Big Brothers & Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs, Children & Youth
Mission: To help children-in-need reach their potential, through professionally supported, one-to-one mentoring relationships to strengten the social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral competencies of children living in poverty, to improve the children's commitment to school and to academic achievement; to improve children's understanding of healthy standards of behavior; to improve each child's resilience, self-efficacy and sense of the future; and to strengthen each child's sense of self-worth.
Programs: In 2017, over 500 new mentor and mentees were matched. In total, big brothers and big sisters of los angeles (bbbsla) served 1794 children and youth across los angeles, of which 80% were low income and 95% were youth of color. 98% of the youth in bbbsla's programs graduated high school and 95% were college bound. Children and youth are given the option of participating in one of the following programs:our community based mentoring program matches one child with one caring adult mentor, and supports the relationship with trained case managers called match support specialists. The volunteer mentor, the child, and his or her parent/guardian make a minimum one year commitment to the relationship. Current bbbsla big/little matches last an average of 35. 7 months, exceeding the national average. The matches meet at least twice a month for 2-5 hours, either on their own or when they attend recreational, educational and community service actities organized by the agency. In addition to the army of volunteers who come forward from the community, bbbsla has partnerships with corporations, who encourage and support employee involvement in this program. The workplace mentoring program is an educational vocational, and cultural program that matches volunters from a corporation with youth from a local high school within the corporations community. Big brothers big sisters facilitates activities within the program that engage employees and teach students the skills necessary to enter, sustain, and succeed in the working world. Through our school based program, volunteers offer individualized time and attention on a consistent basis to childrent in public elementary schools throughout los angeles county. Teachers identify children who cam benefit most from an extra caring adult in their lives. Volunteers make a minimum one year commitment, and meet with the child for one hour once a week. While a mentor may spend time helping the child with schoolwork, the focus is providing friendship and emotional support. Typically this involves reading for pleasure, playing educational games, or just sitting and talking.