Advice for Mentors & Mentees

Words of advice from some of our Junior and Senior Friends after one year of being matched:


For Mentors:  “Welcome the Junior Friends into your life. Make them feel as comfortable as possible and try to show them you’re here for them.”

“When scheduling-first put the next visit on a “post it” and then follow up with a phone call the day before.”

“Sometimes the best times are just unplanned, unstructured days when you both can just “present” together.”

"I think the Junior Friend needs to be heard."

For Mentees: "Be flexible and let someone who is trying to help you, gradually be in your life. They can help and it will be fun!”

“Please give the Senior Friend a chance, even if they look nothing like you, that person can relate to you more than what you could imagine. They can help you through the most awful day of your life.”


For Both:  "Laugh. Have fun."
"Give it a chance. Take that first step. It’s not what you might think it is."

"Be committed, do the work up front, don’t miss outings, and the bond will develop on its own."

Photographer nominated for volunteer award

Darren Ferriera, an outstanding professional photographer who has volunteered annually to take pictures of our matches, was recently nominated by Friends for Youth for the Volunteer Center’s 2010 Community Spirit Award. The award is part of National Volunteer Week — April 18 through 24 — celebrations.

Darren has consistently volunteered his time and talent since 2002 to capture the essence of our program with striking and honest photographs of our Friendships. He donates not only his time for the portrait taking, but also the setup for the activity, editing of images, and burning to individual CDs each Friendship gets to keep. These photos are a gift to each Friendship (along with the experience of sitting for a portrait in a professional studio), and also allow Friends for Youth to explain our organization to the community in a direct and personal manner. As a result of Darren’s service, we are able to find and recruit more volunteers to be mentors to the youth-in-need in our program. The wide-ranging impact of Darren’s volunteerism is immeasurable, as his photographs grace our website, annual report, marketing materials, and the walls of our Redwood City office. Friends for Youth could not afford to pay for such professional photography, so his contribution is significant.

Darren’s volunteerism is an example of employee-initiated volunteerism, and as a result, his employer, Gap, Inc., donates its space and equipment to support this annual Friendship Portrait Day. In addition to volunteering his expertise, Darren is also able to bring in financial donations from his employer by participating in Gap’s Money for Time program.

In addition to taking pictures at the annual Gap Studio Portrait Group Activity, Darren also leads Friendships on a tour of his workplace, providing a “real world” office visit so mentees can be introduced to potential careers in the fashion industry. In addition to the obvious careers in modeling and photography, Darren also highlights the many others that are represented at the Gap studio, such as business, marketing, digital editing, information technology, security, etc. This allows mentees to visualize future career opportunities that may be of interest to them.

To date, Darren has photographed 65 Friendships. He has done so because of his support of Friends for Youth’s mission to create quality mentoring relationships for youth who need them most.

A Time to Reflect

April begins our new fiscal year and with it planning for our annual Mentoring Conference, golf tournament and fashion show fundraisers, activities for current Friendships, and recruiting new mentors for the over 70 young people on our waiting list who want to be matched with mentors.  Looking back, we not only met our goals for numbers of young people matched but we also saw the impact of these Friendships. 

One mentee said, "“I can now go out and try new things more often. My social skills with people have now come out. I love to meet new people.”  One mentor said, "The number of activities that were offered makes is so much easier to plan and find activities we’d both like to share. It has been very helpful. Also I like the fact that the staff follows up with and builds a personal relationship with both mentor and mentee."

Making a difference is why we're here.  In addition to our direct service, our Mentoring Conference elicited the following from mentoring professionals: “I’ve been working in the mentoring field for nine years and still learned something today!”  “Very motivational and applicable – I was impressed with the presentation and am encouraged to collaborate more with local agencies.”  “I appreciated the extra resources that were otherwise foreign to me.”

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

A Short History of National Child Abuse Prevention Month from Child Welfare Information Gateway

Increasing public awareness of the need to ensure the safety and welfare of children led to the passage of the first Federal child protection legislation, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), in 1974. In 1983, April was proclaimed the first National Child Abuse Prevention Month with the President issuing a proclamation calling upon Government agencies and the public to observe the week with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities. In 1989, the Blue Ribbon Campaign to Prevent Child Abuse had its early beginnings as a Virginia grandmother's tribute to her grandson who died as a result of abuse. She tied a blue ribbon to the antenna of her car as a way to remember him and to alert her community to the tragedy of child abuse. Most recently, the focus has shifted toward a more positive message of celebrating "blue ribbon" individuals, organizations, and communities who have done much to prevent child abuse and neglect. Today, the Child Abuse Prevention Initiative is an opportunity for communities across the country to keep children safe, provide the support families need to stay together, and raise children and youth to be happy, secure, and stable adults.

Programs and organizations offer many different approaches to prevent child abuse, as it is a complex problem with many causes. In addition to educating parents about raising children without abuse and offering services to treat children when it has happened, another important approach is offering life skills training to children and youth to help them protect themselves from abuse.

In youth mentoring, the goal is generally to help a young person build upon his or her own strengths with the intervention of a mentor. It is the responsibility of the program to ensure their volunteers, either adult or peer, are adequately screened and trained so that they do not cause any harm to their mentees. Friends for Youth’s Mentoring Institute, the publisher of SAFE (Screening Applicants for Effectiveness): Guidelines to Prevent Child Molestation in Mentoring and Youth-Serving Organizations, recommends a stringent application process, including but not limited to criminal-history background checks and child abuse registry checks, for all volunteers.

Starting in late April, the Mentoring Institute will be offering its acclaimed training, Going Beyond the Background Check: Incorporating SAFE Practices, through webinars. Sign up to receive the announcement so you can reserve your spot.

A Short List of What You Can Do To Prevent Child Abuse adapted from Prevent Child Abuse America:

1. Help yourself. When the big and little problems of your everyday life pile up to the point you feel overwhelmed and out of control, take time out. Don’t take it out on your children or family.
2. Anything you do to support kids and parents can help reduce the stress that often leads to abuse and neglect.
3. Be a friend to a child you know. Remember their names. Smile when you talk with them. Ask them about their day at school. Send them a card in the mail. Show you care. Become a mentor!
4. Report suspected abuse or neglect. If you have reason to believe a child has been or may be harmed, call your local department of children and family services or you local police department.
5. Volunteer your time and money for programs in your community that support children and families including local youth mentoring programs.

And check out 30 Ways to Strengthen Families During National Child Abuse Prevention Month for youth-serving programs!