The Pathways Mentoring Program is a mentoring effort that links caring adult volunteers with children and youth, ages 7 to 21 years old, who are in foster care placements throughout the Kansas City area. The age preferences and interests and skills of a mentor will be considered when making a match with a youth. The mentor will develop a personal, ongoing relationship with the child they are mentoring as they engage in activities in the community.

Research seems to suggest that mentoring programs have been increasingly advocated as a means of redressing a foster care youth's fundamental need for close and caring relationships. Past experiences of foster youth may create barriers to their establishing close, supportive friendships. In fact, researchers believe that as many as three-fourths of foster care youth may experience difficulty forming healthy attachments. On the other hand, foster care youth have been uniquely responsive to supportive relationships with caring adults, and mentoring can have a positive impact on the lives of these children. Those of us in this field have seen how the addition of a caring adult to a child's life can bring about miracles.

Mentors can offer a model of support, challenging the adolescent's view of adults as untrustworthy and himself or herself as undeserving of attention and care. It is in this sense that a relationship with a mentor can become a "corrective experience" for kids who have experienced neglectful or abusive relationships with their parents or other adults. Further research seems to suggest that mentoring can facilitate more positive relationships with peers and others. Thus a mentor can become that miracle in a child's life.

The Pathways Mentoring Program was created to provide qualified and trained mentors who have a passion for working with highly traumatized youth in the foster care system. It adheres to the following best practices:

• Structure and planning are top program priorities.
• The program will be youth-driven.
• Mentoring goals will be developed by the Family Support Team (FST), which includes youth, parent or guardian, mentoring staff, teacher, therapist, and agency case manager.
• Mentors will demonstrate commitment and follow-through.
• Program will have a Positive Youth Development perspective.
• Mentors will have thorough training and supervision.
• Mentoring will be aimed at enhancing social skills, emotional well-being, improving cognitive skills via dialogue and listening, role-modeling, and advocacy.
• Matches will be carefully considered and focused on the specific needs of youth and desired outcomes.
• Mentoring goals will be well-defined, monitored and updated.
• Proper closure of matches will be crucial in order to avoid damage to youth and to promote positive outcomes.

For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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