College of the Holy Cross

My Capstone Project is entitled "Big Brother Big Sister: Fostering Resiliency Through Positive Mentoring Relationships". I am investigating the BBBS program from a resiliency development perspective. Using questionpro.com to question Holy Cross students currently involved in BBBS as youth mentors I will investigate the mentor training they received and would like to receive in order to create a training tutorial for future mentors. As mentor training and support is an essential part of creating a positive mentoring relationship, in essence this training program will contribute the the likelihood that youth mentees involved will foster resilience.

Among the service programs on campus Big Brother/Big Sister is one of the largest in its percentage of student body involvment through both SPUD and John's Brothers. Students meet on a regular basis to mentor a child or youth in the Worcester area. While this is a tremendous service that students provide to the community and an important experience fo personal learning and growth, there may be room to make the program as a whole more successful and mentoring relationships themselves more positive.

Research has shown that not all mentoring programs are equal. Big Brother Big Sister of Worcester County has drastically shaped the community, but as with any program ther is room for improvement. In addition to looking at the current literature concerning resiliency and intervention with children and youth I will also be making use of the wide range of articles and guides created for intervention programs particularly for mentoring programs and mentors to assess their effectiveness, address needs, and to train and support mentors for more positive relationships.

Going directly to the source itself, that being the students, their mentors, faculty, staff of BBBS, and SPUD program directors, I will work to develop a clearer sense of which areas need to be addressed within a comprehensive training program. Thes areas may include chid/youth deveolpment, characteristics of the adolescents in the program, roles and expectations of the mentor and student, activity ideas, listening skills, diversity training, conflict resolution, and risk behavior. Use of a QuestionPro questionnaire and informal interviews will be informative in addressing these areas.

The goal of this project will be to create an hour long multimedia training presentation and take-home materials for Holy Cross students beginning the Big Brother Big Sister mentoring program. I intend to make this program both comprehensive and straightforward so that student directors of the mentoring program can use it in future years.