Program areas at BBBSSEPA
Mentoring services: through community-based and school-based youth mentoring programs, more than 1,300 children are served annually in chester, Delaware, montgomery and philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania, and burlington, camden and gloucester counties in new jersey. Program achievements include a rating of three stars by charity navigator (the nation's largest and most utilized charity evaluator), gold standard for top performing agencies in the nation, and 1,387 children and mentors positively impacted during 2022. During 2022, of the children in youth mentoring programs for 12 months or more, 98% of littles avoided or ceased substance use, 94% of litles stayed on track with or improved behavior in school, 97% of littles kept or created plans for high school graduation and beyond. Also provided capacity building, training & quality assurance to 345 to 350 organizations in the Region
As an affiliated organization of Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence, mentor Independence Region (mir) was launched in 2015 to expand the mentoring field's regional capacity to reach more youth, and to pair them with caring, committed adult mentors. Mir works directly with mentoring programs by assisting with trainings, technical assistance, quality assessment, professional networking, and advocacy. During 2022, 395 programs were directly supported, 65 trainings were delivered, 1,452 adult participants were trained, 550 technical assistance hours were delivered, 250 quality assessment reviews were completed, and approximately 179.000 youth were positively impacted. Mir's mission is to fuel the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships for greater philadelphia's young people and to close the mentoring gap.