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The
Mentoring Center’s Youth Services Division specializes in
working with the most highly at-risk youth, those youth who are
no longer simply at-risk but immersed in their risk behaviors.
Most of the youth The Mentoring Center (TMC) serves are
incarcerated or formally incarcerated, on probation, parole, or
facing expulsion from school.
TMC utilizes a “Transformative Mentoring” approach to serve
highly at-risk youth. Transformative Mentoring/Intervention is
an intentional, structured, systemic and corrective intervention
focused on personally transforming the attitude and mental
framework of a disrupted human development cycle. It is an
intense service delivery system. TMC’s approach includes a
group-mentoring program that is curriculum based and long term.
The ultimate goal is to change the mentality in the youth that
gives rise to destructive behavior.
TMC’s Transition/Transformative Curriculum is designed for
Character Development, Cognitive Restructuring, Spiritual
Development, Life Skills Training, Anger Management, and
Employability Skills. Once the mentality and attitudes are
successfully addressed, the youth are then ready to benefit from
TMC’s follow-up and support services including educational
assistance, employment training, job placement, housing,
clothing, transportation, and referrals for substance abuse
counseling and mental health therapy.
TMC's
Programs Include:
Transition
Program:
A 24-week intensive program for young people incarcerated in
California Youth Authority with re-entry services when they are
released. Read more
Positive
Minds Group:
A group-mentoring program conducted out of our downtown Oakland
offices serving highly at-risk youth ages 14-25. The
eight-month, open enrollment program serves both males and
females. The Positive Minds Group also has four youth
coordinators, young people who have gone through the program and
are doing well and serve as peer mentors. Read
more
Positive
Minds Group On-Location:
In response to several requests to bring our programs to schools
and other locations, TMC created the PMG On-Location program
that is an abbreviated form of the Positive Minds Group. TMC has
conducted this program in high schools, community centers, and
group homes. Read more
Project
Choice: A
federally funded City of Oakland program serving “serious and
violent” youth and adult offenders. In July 2003, The
Mentoring Center became the program’s lead agency for the
youth offenders, serving 20 wards in the California Youth
Authority coming home to Oakland. Project Choice works with the
youth for six months to a year prior to their parole in group
and one-on-one sessions. The program pairs each youth with a
case manager that serves as a mentor as well as a monitor and
supervisor of the young person through their Life Plan.
Pathways
to Change:
In July 2003, TMC became the lead agency for Pathways to Change,
a City and County funded initiative. Pathways to Change is a
pre-adjudication program targeting repeat juvenile offenders in
Oakland. Pathways to Change is based on successful models in
other cities that target a similar population and have proven to
reduce recidivism. The program pairs repeat offenders with case
managers who serve as mentors and role models while providing
on-going supervision and brokering services. Pathways to Change
case managers are subcontracted through partnering agencies and
are supervised by a centralized Program Director.
Proud
Parenting Program: Designed
to train young men on the importance of being a father and train
them on how to be one. A manhood and fatherhood development
program funded by the State of California through CYA. The
program consists of weekly group meetings every Tuesday evening
an occasional family outings and eventually one-on-one mentor
matches.
Project
First: Project
First is a violence prevention program that serves first time
youth offenders in order to prevent their further involvement
with the juvenile justice system and broker services for the
youth, including mental health assessment. The program is a
partnership between the Oakland Police Department, the Alameda
County Probation Department and Safe Passages with The Mentoring
Center serving as the lead agency and the Center for Family
Counseling and Covenant House as partnering agencies.
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