Hatch secures money for mentoring program
Utah State University’s Youth and Families with Promise program will receive a $989,477 grant from the Small Business Administration, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced Oct. 1.
“This program truly puts our resources where they’re needed most – helping troubled and wayward youth realize their potential and reach their greatest dreams,” Hatch said.
“We’re grateful that Sen. Hatch was able to get funding for the Youth and Families with Promise program for the fourth straight year,” Tom Lee, a USU family and human development professor, said, “We’re really excited to be able to continue the program throughout the state.
Lee, a creator and former project director of the YFP program, said this is the fourth year the program has been able to run statewide. He said the program is administered through USU Extension for each county in the state.
The funding is used to recruit and train volunteers to be mentors for at-risk youth ages 10 to 14, Lee said.
Kathy Riggs, co-principle investigator for YFP, said in the past, Hatch has been able to get funding for the program through a defense bill. Since he was no longer able to get money through that bill, Hatch found a way to get funding through the Small Business Administration, a federal office in Washington, D.C., she said.
“Sen. Hatch has gone to bat for us for the last five years for funding,” Riggs said. “He keeps his eye out for us. He has done a great job as an advocate with at-risk kids.”
Riggs said the three main goals of the program are to improve the youth’s academic achievement, to increase the youth’s social skills and to help strengthen the youth’s family ties.
She said the kids involved in the program are referred through schools, family agencies, families and some come into the program as first time juvenile offenders.
Lee said with more than 34 programs in 21 Utah counties, YFP has served more than 700 at-risk youth, and another 2,000 of their family members during the last academic year.
He said the program has been found effective in helping these youth academically, in social situations and in strengthening family relationships.
According to the Youth and Families with Promise Web site, of the youth that are involved in the program, 61 percent feel more confident in social situations, 53 percent are less likely to give up in school and 37 percent get along better with their parents.
The Web site says most young adult mentors are students attending Utah’s universities and colleges. There are also “grand mentors,” who are elderly couples chosen from community volunteer organizations or religious groups to befriend and mentor the youth’s entire family.
Lee said most mentors from Cache County are USU students.
Based on the program’s effectiveness, the United States Department of Justice has selected Youth and Families with Promise for an internal evaluation. The department will begin a formal, three-year assessment of the program’s impact in October, as a possible prelude to using it as a national model.
For more information about volunteering as a mentor, call the Youth and Families with Promise Contact Coordinator for Cache Valley, Sharilee Guest, at 753-1745.
-meganroe@cc.usu.edu