IEL Receives $3.5 Million for National Mentoring Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) announces its selection to receive approximately $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for a 3-year national mentoring program to serve youth with disabilities at-risk of truancy or court-involvement. The Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program (RAMP) will provide high-tech career-focused mentoring and is designed to address the over-representation of youth with disabilities in the juvenile corrections system.

In announcing the national mentoring awards last week, U.S. Attorney General Holder said that, “these grants will help steer young people away from criminal activities by providing them with health life alternatives, positive role models and direct contact with caring adults.”

In a year, approximately 144,000 delinquency cases result in youth being committed to out-of-home placement. Although the in-school percentage of youth with disabilities averages approximately 9 percent, across states the number of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system averages over 30 percent – with some states ranging as high as 77.5 percent. RAMP will utilize the Guideposts for Success, a transition framework, and Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring for Youth with Disabilities as a foundation to provide mentoring to youth at-risk of truancy or court-involvement.

“This award provides us a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how important career-focused mentoring can be in the lives of youth with disabilities as well as those without,” said Curtis Richards, Director of the Center for Workforce Development at IEL. “We are excited about the diversity of young people and sites that will allow us to test research-based practices and tools through this grant. We believe we will be able to demonstrate that youth with disabilities at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system can lead productive, responsible lives with the assistance of good mentors.”

The IEL’s Center for Workforce Development (CWD), home to several national technical assistance centers, will work with state and local disability and mentoring organizations to provide one-on-one, group, and peer mentoring using research-based strategies. Youth will participate in weekly career-focused group meetings, as well as regular one-on-one mentor meetings.

In addition to the approximately $3.5 million that OJJDP is providing for this program, state and local sites are also leveraging another $1.7 million in financial and in-kind resources from federal, state, city and county, and private foundation sources for training, career exploration, mentoring, and counseling services. Through this infusion of resources, research-based strategies, and cross-system collaboration, the RAMP program will match trained mentors to youth with disabilities to reduce court involvement and/or recidivism; increase career preparation; and develop work-readiness skills for the youth in the program.

The selected sites for this project include:

Atlantic Region:

Florida High School/High Tech (FL)
Start on Success (MD)
YOUTH POWER! (NY)

South Region:

Start on Success (LA)
High School/High Tech UCP of Greater Houston (TX)

North Region:

Peckham, Inc. (MI)

Mountain Region:

Employment Works (CO)

New England Region:

Vermont Department of Labor (VT)

IEL, founded in 1964, is a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization that initiates, operates, and supports improvement and innovation initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels. IEL has received support from such diverse federal sources as the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Commerce. IEL pursues a comprehensive, systematic approach and works through impartial, dynamic, nationwide networks of people and organizations. IEL’s mission is to improve the capacity of individuals and organization to work together to achieve better outcomes for all youth, Pre-K through postsecondary education to the workforce.

Find out more about IEL at www.iel.org

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For further information contact Curtis Richards at 202-822-8405 or richardsc@iel.org.

4455 Connecticut Avenue, NW—Suite 310 • Washington, DC 200308 • 202-822-8405 • 202-872-4050 fax • iel@iel.org • www.iel.org