School Partnerships
It is never our intent to imply that mentoring at all replaces school, it is simply an added support to our already amazing schools. We recognize that teachers, school staff and administrators have huge burdens placed on them and high expectations to meet each day, and that may or may not leave as much time as they would desire to build relationships with students and have one-on-one time. We have found that mentoring can be an enormous help to schools in this area. The mentoring relationship never replaces other relationships in the schools, but the school partners that mentorship provides gives students access to an extra adult who does not have so many demands placed on their time.This mentor can support their mentee’s growth and development, build a deep connection, and give students needed space to be heard.
Mentoring Helps Support Academics
- Social Emotional Learning competence shows benefits such as: improved test scores, grades, and attendance positive social behaviors and relationships with peers and adults (Durlak et al., 2011; Farrington et al., 2012; Sklad et al., 2012)
- SEL has been found to: improve achievement increase attitudes toward school reduce depression and stress (Durlak et al., 2011)
- Kindergartners stronger in SEL are more likely to: graduate high school earn a college degree obtain stable employment in young adulthood (Jones, Greenberg & Crowley, 2015)
- In addition to better school attendance and a better chance of going on to higher education, mentored youth maintain better attitudes toward school. Grossman, J., Herrera, C., & Dubois, D. L. (2017, April 24). The Role of Risk. MDRC. https://www.mdrc.org/publication/role-risk
- Young adults who face an opportunity gap but have a mentor are 55% more likely to be enrolled in college than those who did not have a mentor. (The Mentoring Effect, 2014)
Mentors Provide One-on-One Support to Students
After proper screening and training, our mentors are carefully matched with a student for the school year. Matches meet one-on-one for one hour, once per week, at school during the school day. During that time, students and mentors spend time:
- Building and using Social Emotional Learning skills
- Supporting self esteem and leadership skill development
- Supporting academics
School Partners
Affinity Mentoring is dedicated to supporting students, families, schools, and the community as a whole. We work hard to listen closely to school staff, parents and community members to ensure we are providing a desired and valuable service to the community, and in a way that ensures everyone involved is respected, valued, and empowered.
Much of our work is done with the support of fabulous community partners. We highly value collaborating with other organizations, groups, and corporations working in and alongside schools to ensure we are never duplicating work, but engaging in our area of expertise while listening and learning from those around us.