Programs & Initiatives

Community Based is where the volunteer Big goes to the child’s home and takes the child into the community (to libraries, sporting or cultural events, the mall, the park, etc.) to spend time together. In a Community Based program, the child’s parent(s)/guardian(s) joins the match relationship—participating in the enrollment interview and monthly match support contacts. Most volunteers serve as a Community Based Big individually. However, our “Big Couple” and “Big Family” expand the experience by involving the volunteer’s spouse/partner and/or own children as active participants in the match. Big Couples and Big Families typically are matched with Little Brothers ages 11 and younger.

For Site Based mentoring, all contact occurs with school personnel, consent, and support during the school day at the Little’s school. Mentors often eat lunch with their mentee, or the match will hang out in the school’s library, gym, computer lab, or other designated space. A School Based program happens at a school. A “Site Based” program occurs at a selected and supervised non-school location, such as at a Boys and Girls Club site, a city library, a corporate partner’s office building, etc. School Based matches may become School Plus matches if desired, giving the match permission to have additional contacts (once or twice a month) outside of the school setting. 

mentor2.0 leverages structured, online exchanges to enhance the match relationship between adult mentors and high school student mentees. Weekly written online communications and once-per-month in-person group events follow an established curriculum focused on helping the high school 9th-12th grader do well in school and college preparation and career exploration. This model involves entire classrooms of students at a school, as each student has his/her mentor writing back and forth to one another each week, ideally for all four years of high school. The program currently operates in specific partner high schools in Dallas, Tarrant, and Harris counties.

e-mentoring is our newest program created to connect youth and mentors virtually. With e-mentoring, mentors and mentees, with parent/guardian support and involvement, are asked to join virtually every week and log into BBBS of America’s monitored communication platform at least twice a month, as well. In-person contact between youth and their mentor is not allowed in an e-mentoring match unless at a planned, supervised BBBS match activity. The program follows each of the critical success factors found in other BBBS mentoring options. Its enrollment and match support practices follow those of BBBS of America’s Standards of Practice for Community Based matches. e-mentoring enables youth to have a mentor despite roadblocks of time, distance, and local volunteer availability.