We Had a Ball, Year of Fun-filled Group Activities

As Friends for Youth’s 2011-2012 fiscal year comes to a close (March 31), the Mentoring Services Team is reflecting back on the group activity highlights of the past year.

Group activities are designed with multiple goals in mind. First and foremost, they provide Junior and Senior Friends opportunities to build their relationship and develop new skills in a fun supportive setting. Second, they help introduce Friendships to other matches in the program and provide a pro-social setting for mentee-to-mentee interaction. Some activities, such a Senior Friend Groups, are designed to provide ongoing training and education to mentors, as well as a social space for volunteers to share their experience with each other. In addition, most group activities provide Junior Friends with a chance to engage in new opportunities, visit new places, and enjoy their youth. Through these fun activities and most importantly the Friendship of their Senior Friend, Junior Friends thrive and improve their self-esteem, school performance, and have a better outlook on the future.

In the past year Friends for Youth has offered more than 40 group activities for Friendships and also distributed free tickets to more than 15 special events. These activities and opportunities have exposed Junior Friends and Senior Friends to various cultural events, including local art and music opportunities. Other activities have focused on spending time outdoors in nature, sports, and health and fitness activities.

This year Friendships participated in community service group activities such as restoring our local wetlands, spending time with the elderly, and working in a community vegetable garden that provides food for those in need.

Life Skills Workshops got the conversations going on topics such as alcohol and drug prevention, stress management and suicide prevention, and how to interact respectfully and peacefully with law enforcement.

Great fun was had at our Beach Extravaganza in Half Moon Bay where Friendships competed in a scavenger hunt, flew kites, and dipped their toes in the Pacific Ocean. We danced up a sweat at the Hip Hop Dance Lesson and made memories that will last forever at the Gap Studio Friendship Portraits. We learned about the business of an auto mechanic shop and played dodge ball, soccer, and basketball at our annual holiday party!

Free tickets were provided to Friendships to see local sports teams, including the Giants, A’s, 49ers, Earthquakes, Sharks, SaberCats, and Warriors. Also, free tickets to local museums, attractions, and performances were distributed to venues such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Academy of Sciences, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alcatraz, Disney On Ice, Nutcracker Ballet, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Adobe Voice Live with the Black Eyed Peas.

In addition to our Mentor Mixers, Senior Friend Groups were held on topics such as Are We Having Fun Yet? and Dealing with Difficult Issues.

The Mentoring Services Team would like to THANK so many people and organizations for their support of our program: Community Access Ticket Service, San Francisco Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland A’s, Golden State Warriors, our Mentoring Institute Program Director Sarah Kremer, Redwood City Police Department, Photographer Darren Ferriera and the Gap Digital Photo Studio, Nothing But Hoops, Fresh Lifelines for Youth, Community Street Jam, Mae de la Calzada and Lady Parts Automotive Services, Bay Area Mentoring, Save the Bay, Lytton Gardens, ABC 7 Live, Senior Friend Antonia Lindsey, Senior Friend James Farrey, Senior Fried Judy Cronin, Board Member Dave Rozzi, and the many donors who contributed to our Groupon Campaign, who made next month’s Friendship snow trip possible. More details to come on that!

13th Annual Mentoring Conference, Making A Difference Every Day:Program Support in Youth Mentoring

This year's annual mentoring conference, Making A Difference Every Day:Program Support in Youth Mentoring, is gearing up for two great days of education and networking later this week. On Thursday, February 9, conference attendees have a choice of one full-day and four half-day pre-conference courses at the Crowne Plaza Foster City-San Mateo. On Friday, two keynote presentations and a choice of 15 workshop sessions will provide attendees with concrete tools and practical suggestions to easily implement into their new or existing programs, making both attendees and their programs stronger and better able to serve their communities. Our thanks to conference sponsors Oracle, Center for Applied Research Solutions, and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health for making this event possible.

Volunteer mentors often say their motivation is to make a difference in the life of a young person. With proper screening, training, matching, supporting, and retention services, this goal can be achieved. Our theme this year reflects a need for program staff to feel supported and know their work, every single day, also makes a difference.

We're very excited to be featuring Tim Cavell, Ph.D., as the keynote speaker. Dr. Cavell will be talking about two different ways to view youth mentoring: relationship and context. Dr. Cavell will challenge attendees to really assess their mentoring matches as relationships. In an earlier workshop, Dr. Cavell will be sharing some of his own personal experience as a mentor and how it compares to what he's learned as a researcher.

For our morning keynote presentation, we're going to be connecting to the reasons why we all do this work with what is sure to be an emotional and moving experience by the Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble. Volunteers will share their personal stories to be performed by the actors and musician members.

Our other expert presenters come from around the country and will be sharing their knowledge on best practices in a variety of areas, including program design, screening mentors, program logic models, sustainability and collaboration, faith-based programming, and school-based mentoring. We're also excited to feature workshops focused on working with special populations like high-risk black males, system-involved youth, group mentoring, and college-bound mentoring. Youth development sessions will remind attendees about the importance of positive youth approaches, especially when dealing with difficult situations and for youth who are facing serious emotional stressors. Other workshops will help participants transform youth resistance and give adults a better perspective on the impact of technology on youth.

We're also proud to feature several community partners, including VolunteerMatch, KidsData, and TechSoup, to provide information on important resources to help nonprofits do their important work.

Finally, in line with our theme, we have special sessions dedicated to helping program staff feel more support and learn strategies to help make their jobs easier.

Join us for the annual mentoring conference this week for incredible learning and networking opportunities, and to hear more about our 2012 Making A Difference Award winners!