Mission Statement

Create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.

Impact

Since 1980, BBBSIL has delivered quality, evidence-based one-on-one mentoring relationships serving at-risk children across St. Clair, Madison, Clinton, and Monroe counties in southwestern Illinois (SWIL). During this time, we have impacted thousands of youths facing adversity in supportive relationships with screened and trained volunteer mentors proven to positively impact their lives. Today, our staff are focused on building safe, quality, long-lasting 1:1 mentoring relationships and supporting these relationships with qualified, trained, knowledgeable, and culturally competent staff.

In 2023 we served 107 children through 1:1 mentorship and an additional 203 children through wrap around services. Our average match length increased from 17 months to 18.2 months.

The Dana Brown Charitable Trust support has allowed us to hire an additional Match Support Specialst to souly focus on collecting completed Youth Outcome Surveys (YOS) and Strength of Relationship Surveys (SoR) from the children, parents, and Bigs in our program.

The YOS is administered by staff to Littles initially upon match and annually thereafter allowing them to self-report how they are doing in key areas including relationships, ability to avoid risky behaviors, and academics. The survey asks the Little questions related to social acceptance, scholastic competency, grades, risk attitudes, parental trust, truancy, special adults in their life, and juvenile justice.

The SoR is administered to Littles after three months of being matched, at six months, and then annually. The SoR asks about the Little’s connectedness to their mentor and areas where the youth or family would like more support with their Match.

Our program staff and program manager review data annually to track Match and youth outcomes, identify needs, and adjust programming.

In additon to this, our Bigs asked for agency-led events to create opportunities to engage with Littles in a safe environment, so we added dozens of low-cost and free activities to our annual Match activities calendar.