Junior Senior Friends

The Junior Senior Friends Program is an early intervention / prevention program that has a successful history serving youth in communities within Merrimack, Sullivan, and Belknap Counties. The Program impacts child abuse and neglect, juvenile court involvement, out-of-home placement, and many other societal issues facing youth by recruiting, screening, matching and supporting volunteer mentors who work with school-age youth at-risk of making poor choices.

Volunteer mentors are referred to as “Senior Friends” and mentees are referred to as “Junior Friends.”

The youth that are referred to the program are typically from homes impacted by familial, financial, or behavioral health issues. Of these households, many are headed by a single parent or guardian and have an income level considered to be low to moderate. Many of the youth have been identified as having a specific learning disability, a speech or language impairment, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD or ADHD), an emotional handicap or a combination of these challenges. Often youth have been identified as being victims or witness to either physical and/or sexual abuse. However, the most common denominator among our Junior Friends is the lack of self-esteem and confidence. As a result of these challenges, Junior Friends are at greater risk for making unhealthy choices that could lead to delinquent behavior, drug and alcohol use or abuse, dropping out of school, or out of home residential placement.

The Program has met all the best practice standards for youth mentoring, endorsed by the National Mentoring Partnership, the National Mentoring Center, Public/Private Ventures, and the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services.

Though the numbers of children and families served may seem modest in comparison to other services, the impact of mentoring can be life-changing. Research consistently shows that a key difference between successful and unsuccessful youth from lower-income communities is mentoring. A review of more than 200 research studies concluded that, in order to successfully pass through adolescence, youth need access to safe places, challenging experiences, and caring people on a daily basis. Mentors provide these 3 key elements and improve self-esteem, serve as role models, and advocates.

“Again and again, we found the same pattern was repeated: the kid who managed to climb out of the morass of poverty and social pathology was the kid who found somebody, usually in school, sometimes outside, who help them invent a promising future.” (B Lefkowitz, Tough Change: Growing Up on Your Own in America; New York: Free Press, 1986).

“The probabilities that teenagers will end up on the corner or in a stable job are conditioned by a great many features of life in their communities. Of these, we believe the most significant is the presence or absence of adult mentors.” (TM Williams & W Kornblum, Growing Up Poor; Lexington, MA: Lexington, MA, 1985).

Unfortunately, many children do not find supportive, caring adults outside of their home. Many successful adults recognize the importance of close, one-to-one relationships with youth; the problem they face is a lack of opportunity to get connected. The Friends Program has been successfully providing that opportunity for adults to mentor children. We are always in need of more volunteer mentors!

The most scientifically rigorous study to date has demonstrated that youth in programs like the Junior Senior Friends Program are:

• 46% less likely to use drugs than the control group
• mentored youth were 1/3rd less likely to hit someone
• mentored youth skipped half as many days of school
• mentored youth were 27% less likely to initiate alcohol use
• the quality of the mentored youths’ relationships with their parents was better than youth in the control group