Mentoring ToDAY provides mentoring, advocacy, and family engagement services to youth incarcerated at Oak Hill Youth Center.  Mentoring ToDAY's mentoring program matches Oak Hill residents with volunteer mentors about four months prior to each youth's release. 

Through weekly meetings that continue for at least eight months after the mentee's release, the mentee and mentor develop goals for the reentry period and take steps towards meeting those goals.  Meanwhile, Mentoring ToDAY's staff advocates for mentees by attending court hearings and meeting with family members and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) to develop a comprehensive reentry plan for each youth. 

Mentoring ToDAY has also developed a family engagement initiative to better involve family members in the reentry planning process and include them in the organization's mentoring services.  The organization's long-term goal is to keep participants from returning to criminal behavior, and it has achieved remarkable results towards this goal in a very short period. 

In 2008, the DC Community Grants Initiative awarded Mentoring ToDAY with a general support grant. 

 |  1 Year  |  http://www.mentoringtoday.org