I spent 10 years working in juvenile corrections with teenagers charged as adults for their crimes. These young people told me I was the first person to really listen to them.
That crushed my heart. It didn’t have to be that way, especially when the main thing missing from their lives was so obvious: safe, calm and nurturing relationships.
We all need someone to celebrate our successes, recognize our talents, help us make good choices and expose us to new ideas. We also need people to support us when times are tough and help us access resources when we need them.
For many children, that person is their parent or caregiver. But children of parents who struggle to meet basic needs likely need additional support from other adults. Does this mean these parents love their children any less? Of course not.
One person who can fill the role is a youth mentor. Youth mentoring supports positive mental health as well as the development of tangible skills that help children overcome obstacles. But most mentoring relationships are too narrow in scope and too short in duration to be transformative for children who live in extreme circumstances. And rarely do they encompass the full family.
That’s why I advocate for professional mentors — highly-trained specialists who work across all aspects of a child’s life. I left my job at juvenile detention to become a professional mentor at Friends of the Children-Chicago and am now the program director. Every day I witness the difference having a professional mentor makes for our families.
Why professional mentors?
They are trained professionals. Professional mentor is a full-time position with a competitive salary, evidence-based training and ongoing supervision.Their work is long in duration and broad in scope. At Friends of the Children-Chicago, we recruit children into our program in kindergarten and commit to staying by their side for 12.5 years, no matter what. Each professional mentor has a roster of just eight kids and spends multiple hours every week with each child.They partner with parents to address root causes of problems. They connect parents to resources and empower them to navigate systems and advocate for their kids.They take a holistic view of the child’s well-being. Professional mentors pivot in real-time to address whatever the child or family needs.
We’ve been working with the Vee family for six years, since Taliya (now a sixth grader) was in kindergarten. Three of the Vee children are in our program, each with a different mentor. (Names have been changed to protect privacy.)
When the children’s father was shot and killed, the first call their mother made after hearing the news was to Taliya’s professional mentor. Our mentors picked up the siblings from school and held them as they learned the tragic news. Afterward, their mother fell into a major depression. According to mom, the professional mentors provided her with much-needed love, comfort and support. They called her in the mornings to motivate her to get out of bed, get her children ready and take them to school.
The family continues to face significant hardship, but they know they can count on the stable, safe and consistent support of their professional mentors.
There are no quick fixes to the depth of struggles faced by families impacted by poverty and violence. Short-term, single-focus interventions will not suffice.
I believe the kids I met at juvenile detention would have had a different path if they’d had the support of a professional mentor when they were young. Let’s invest in the children born into the most challenging circumstances by providing them with the life-changing support of highly trained professional mentors.
Phalon Carpenter is program director at Friends of the Children and previously served as lead family and community engagement specialist and professional mentor.
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