Frequently Asked Questions

How are children selected for the program?

How does Faithful Friends work?

What do Friends and children do together?

What are the goals of Faithful Friends?

What are prevention and early intervention?

Is Faithful Friends just a mentoring program?

How can I get involved with Faithful Friends?

What is Faithful Friends?

Faithful Friends is a revolutionary mentoring program that connects our community’s most vulnerable children with paid, professional mentors, called Friends. We stay with our children from kindergarten through their high school graduation date to provide the consistent, caring support they so clearly need. We help our children develop the relationships, goals and skills necessary to break the cycles of poverty, neglect, abuse, and violence in order to become contributing members of our society and their community.

Who are the Friends?

Friends are full-time, trained, paid professional mentors who are hired for their expertise and talent at working with vulnerable, at-risk children. Friends receive extensive training, close supervision and ongoing support from our highly trained and professional staff. Friends bring an exceptional level of diversity, expertise and passion to their work with our children, creating a unique and successful Friend-child relationship that is the cornerstone of our program.

Who are the children?

We select our children based on risk factors identified by research to be most predictive of serious long-term negative outcomes. Each child is identified based on his or her degree of vulnerability to school failure, potential for gang and drug involvement and possible criminal behavior. Many of our children face poverty, homelessness, substitute care, abuse and neglect, parental drug and alcohol abuse, parental incarceration and domestic violence. As a result of these challenges, many of our children move and change schools often. Given their high levels of mobility, our children often fall through the cracks of school or community-based mentoring programs. Because Faithful Friends intervenes early and stays with them for the long-term, we are able to address the specific and diverse needs of children whose instability renders them outside the bounds of other mentoring programs.

How are children selected for the program?

We collaborate closely with local elementary schools to ensure we are identifying children with the highest need. Our research-based and detailed selection process includes a six-week observation period in which Friends, youth development experts, and our experienced staff observe children at school and select those with the greatest need for immediate intervention and a long-term mentor.

How does Faithful Friends work?

Each child is paired with a paid, professional Friend with whom they spend a minimum of four hours each week. Friends are involved in all areas of our children’s lives: supporting them at school, visiting their homes, collaborating with their families, and accompanying them in their communities. This model enables a child to form a trusting, caring, and sustained relationship with an adult that can truly change his or her life for the better.

What do Friends and children do together?

The activities that Friends and children do together are unique to the child’s individual needs, abilities, interests and talents. Friends engage in activities with our children that foster social and emotional development, making positive choices and school success, as well as nurture each child’s passions and talents. These activities take place in the child’s school, home, and community, and may include working on homework, cooking healthy foods, playing sports, performing community service, visiting the library or a museum, or attending a concert. We introduce our children to positive options for their life and extend their community of support.

What are the goals of Faithful Friends?

We set three, clear, measurable long-term goals for each child in our program:

Success in school with a minimum of a high school diploma (preferred) or GED.
Avoid involvement in the juvenile justice system.
Avoid early parenting.

Why pay mentors?

Our children need consistency and a long-term support network. Friends make a profession out of mentoring, thereby providing longer, more consistent commitments to the children we serve. Even in established and respected mentoring programs, volunteer mentors make only a year-long commitment and may leave the program suddenly when other obligations take priority in their lives. Leaving suddenly can jeopardize the child/mentor relationship, making the child feel abandoned and betrayed rather than secure and supported.
Our children need mentors who can see them frequently. Friends spend at least four hours per week with each child, whereas other prominent national mentoring programs require only two to four visits per month with a child. For high-risk children that is not enough.
Our children need mentors who can give them their full attention. Friends are not preoccupied with or tired from their “real” jobs because being a Friend is their real job. Friends receive ongoing training, support, and guidance from our highly experienced program staff to help them cope with the challenges of mentoring. Friends are paid comparable to teachers’ salaries, and receive excellent medical and dental benefits.
Our children need high quality mentors. Friends bring significant education and experience to their work and are highly capable of adapting to our children’s diverse and changing needs. Our interview and screening process is rigorous and competitive because we know our children need the best mentors possible. Most Friends have previous experience in the social work, counseling, and/or teaching professions.

What are prevention and early intervention?

By intervening early and preventing negative outcomes before they occur, Faithful Friends is able to effectively address the specific needs of our nation’s highest-risk children. Friends enter children’s lives early, by the age of six, when their hearts and minds are open, and before negative behaviors have been established. The relationships that children form with their mentors, helps them to navigate the challenges and obstacles they will face throughout childhood and adolescence, and it helps them to build confidence, interests, and skills in order to do so.

Is Faithful Friends just a mentoring program?

Faithful Friends does even more than provide children with professional mentors. Our academic enrichment programs support our youth’s educational needs by providing in-school support, tutoring and educational resources. As our youth begin to transition into early adulthood, college and careers, we will seek to provide appropriate adolescent programs to serve their needs. In addition, Friends connect their children and their families to other social service organizations that can help meet their needs. Faithful Friends is a holistic, comprehensive program that supports our youth at every turn.

Isn’t the program expensive?

Faithful Friends has a relatively high cost per child because we serve only the most at-risk children whose needs cannot be adequately met by less comprehensive mentoring programs. The preventive investment in helping one vulnerable child far outweighs the costs that child will put on society as an adult if they are left to fall through the cracks. Economists estimate that preventing one vulnerable child from becoming a high school dropout saves nearly $400,000, and preventing a child from becoming a career criminal saves roughly $1.5 million in costs to society.**

How can I get involved with Faithful Friends?

You can make a meaningful contribution to Faithful Friends in many ways. Your time, in-kind gifts or services, or monetary and stock donations will help make a difference in the lives of children.

*Smith, Ruth and Emmy Werner. Overcoming the Odds: High Risk children from Birth to Adulthood. New York: Cornell University Press, 1992.

**Smith, Thomas J. “Guides for the Journey: Supporting high-risk youth with paid mentors and counselors.” Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures. June 2004.