Since 2000, our research team has been working on understanding a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that will allow us to expand our cross-age peer mentoring project. The overall goal of this project titled Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth (S.L.I.Y) is to evaluate the effectiveness of community based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes related to violence exposure/engagement and promote positive development among African-American and Latino youth from four low-income, high violence urban neighborhoods (Englewood, Bronzeville, North Lawndale, and South Lawndale) engaging youth mentors from the same high-risk environment. In collaboration with several community organizations such as Bright Star Community Outreach, Sue Duncan Children's Center, Telpochcalli Community Fine Arts School, After School Matters, and more, a prospective approach has been implemented to follow cross-age mentor/mentee pairs for one year of mentoring. We have concluded the mentoring intervention at all sites and data have been collected pre, post and at a 12 month follow-up. Qualitative data collected throughout the intervention has allowed us to investigate what occurred in the mentoring process that helped produce positive outcomes from the cross-age peer mentoring relationships. Data are currently in the process of being analyzed in order to evaluate the intervention and disseminate our findings.
Collaborations |