Common use of Adult Mentoring – the ACES Program Clause in Contracts

Adult Mentoring – the ACES Program. In 2012-2013, Achievement Academy staff participated in and closely followed two local policy initiatives aimed at developing a broad-based community strategy to coordinate youth services in Durham and to reduce youth disconnection. We were struck by the quantity of evidence indicating the value of creating better linkage between education and workforce development programming for youth. We have witnessed the power of that linkage for WIA youth when we have been able to tightly coordinate our services with a student’s WIA work experience supervisor; however, resources in that program are generally quite limited and no effective mechanism has ever evolved to assure consistent communication between school and employer. We consequently decided to embark upon a five year initiative to expand our own program so that Achievement Academy students (WIA and non-WIA) all complete a sequence of coordinated, well-managed, and developmentally appropriate career development experiences tightly linked to our academic program. Phase One of AAD’s new ACES (Achieving Career and Educational Success) program is a career mentoring and personal decision making program that is linked to the Starting Points pre-GED academic program. The personal decision making programming is described above as part of our leadership development programming menu. In 2014, career mentoring will be available to 10 pre-GED students. Mentors from local employers in the health services, biotechnology, and financial services sectors will meet monthly with their assigned students here at the Achievement Academy for structured informational panel discussions and lunch. The mentors will sponsor small group visits to their places of employment once a month, focusing on introducing participants to the variety of career ladder opportunities that exist in these industries (administrative, customer service, technical, managerial) and creating broader networking opportunities for students. The mentor-mentee relationship will be sustained on a weekly basis using e-mentoring tools drawn from IBM’s MentorPlace program. Student participants will be eligible for a small stipend, dependent on mentor review of their participation and school attendance. Mentor matches will be sustained for a minimum of one year, but the intention is for the relationship to carry through Phases 2 and 3 as well, when students will be completing team-based work projects for corporate sponsors (tied to GED programming) and then continuing on for paid internships tied to postsecondary entry. The Achievement Academy has designed the ACES program as a small pilot so that we can maintain a comparison group of nonparticipants and evaluate the effectiveness of the program on school attendance, rate of program completion, postsecondary persistence, and employment outcomes. We hope that it becomes an integrated part of Durham’s new YouthWork Internship Program, providing a developmental programming model that is effective for our community’s most fragile youth.

Adult Mentoring – the ACES Program. In 2012-2013, Achievement Academy staff participated in and closely followed two local policy initiatives aimed at developing a broad-based community strategy to coordinate youth services in Durham and to reduce youth disconnection. We were struck by the quantity of evidence indicating the value of creating better linkage between education and workforce development programming for youth. We have witnessed the power of that linkage for WIA youth when we have been able to tightly coordinate our services with a student’s WIA work experience supervisor; however, resources in that program are generally quite limited and no effective mechanism has ever evolved to assure consistent communication between school and employer. We consequently decided to embark upon a five year initiative to expand our own program so that Achievement Academy students (WIA WIOA and non-WIAWIOA) all complete a sequence of coordinated, well-managed, and developmentally appropriate career development experiences tightly linked to our academic program. Phase One of AAD’s new ACES (Achieving Career and Educational Success) Current program capacity is a career mentoring and personal decision making program that is linked to the Starting Points pre-GED academic program. The personal decision making programming is described above as part of our leadership development programming menu25 youth. In 20142015-16, career mentoring will be available to 10 pre-Starting Points and entering GED students. Mentors from local employers in the health services, biotechnology, and financial services sectors will meet monthly with their assigned students here at the Achievement Academy for structured informational panel discussions and lunch. The mentors will sponsor small group visits to their places of employment once a month, focusing on introducing participants to the variety of career ladder opportunities that exist in these industries (administrative, customer service, technical, managerial) and creating broader networking opportunities for students. The mentor-mentee relationship will be sustained on a weekly basis using e-mentoring tools drawn from IBM’s MentorPlace program. Student participants will be eligible for a small stipend, dependent on mentor review of their participation and school attendance. Mentor matches will be sustained for a minimum of one year, but the intention is for the relationship to carry through Phases 2 and 3 as well, when the program’s subsequent phases well (see below). Ten (10) advanced GED students will may be completing mentored through the completion of team-based work projects for corporate sponsors (tied to GED programming) that culminate in the presentation of a deliverable for the sponsor. This mentorship is focused on helping students develop skill at working as a member of a team and a project management mentality that embodies the values of timeliness, planning, quality, and end-user satisfaction. and then continuing on for paid internships tied to postsecondary entry. The Achievement Academy has designed the ACES program as a small pilot so that we can maintain a comparison group of nonparticipants and evaluate the effectiveness of the program on school attendance, rate of program completion, postsecondary persistence, and employment outcomes. We hope that it becomes an integrated part of Durham’s new YouthWork Internship Program, providing a developmental programming model that is effective for our community’s most fragile youth. Five (5) post-secondary students may be mentored through a work-study year in which they will be simultaneously engaged in post-secondary study and completing a paid part-time internship related to their field of study. Mentors’ roles focus on guiding youth in strategies for maintaining school-work-personal life balance, supporting perseverance during challenging times, and guiding youth toward networking opportunities that could lead to permanent employment at the end of the year.