The Garfield neighborhood’s New Pathways for Youth seeks additional mentors to continue reaching at-risk youth through transformational mentoring.
A new NPFY program, which includes fifth and sixth graders from Garfield Elementary School at Thirteenth and Roosevelt streets, is recruiting 50 mentors. The organization currently serves 500 highly at-risk youth by cultivating relationships between youth from the ages of nine to 21 with adult mentors of varying ages.
“We serve youth that are experiencing extreme levels of poverty, homelessness and very difficult family lives,” said Christy McClendon, president and CEO of New Pathways for Youth.
McClendon said NPFY is trying to reach out to an audience of people 18 and above who are able to pass a clearance process as well as meet some other training requirements such as a clean driving record and willingness to serve, nurture and guide youth on their paths.
The NPFY mentorship is different than a typical mentorship program because of the especially at-risk population it serves.
“The type of mentoring that we provide at New Pathways for Youth is referred to as ‘transformative mentoring,’ and it’s unique and distinct in that it’s a curriculum-based mentor program,” McClendon said. “It’s more of a targeted, intentional intervention with our youth.”
NPFY mentor Janey Pearl Starks, 35, has worked with New Pathways for Youth for about a year. She has also had experience with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, which she describes as counterintuitive and less immersive and than New Pathways for Youth.
“I have support, and there are mostly workshops that both of us are in together with other matches,” she said. “There is also professional development for the mentors both on learning how to work better with our youth and work on ourselves within our career.”
Starks’ mentee Anahi Parra, 18, graduated from high school this year and will be attending Arizona State University in August as a forensics major.
Parra said she has learned a lot from Starks about being a humble, kind and helpful person.
“When things get really hard or frustrating, don’t give up,” Parra said. “I have been in this program for a very long time and what has kept me in it is me saying ‘I can do this, I won’t give up.’”
Starks said leading by example and “just being real” are primary traits looked for in mentors when it comes to making the greatest impact possible on the lives of the mentees.
“Anahi is super smart,” she said. “If I tried to pretend to be something that I am not, I think she would catch onto that. If I am telling her the importance of being dependable and being a good person then it makes me have to do it myself.”
Parra’s progress over their year-long relationship has impressed Starks.
“We were thinking like maybe the military, border patrol, community college or college, and she ended up getting a full ride to ASU for all four years,” Starks said.
Contact the author at brianna.bradley@asu.edu.
Contact the columnist at Holly.Bernstein@asu.edu.
