In the last 3 years a group of therapist working through Capacity Developers Incorporated has formed an informal mentoring group for at-risk youth, families and young adults to provide the helping relationships to support and walk with individuals as they define and achieve their goals. This small group of therapist has utilized a combined 65 years of experience in helping professions to apply it to this mentoring work. Mentoring, defined as a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person; a mentor is an individual that acts as a teacher or trusted counselor, requires that the mentor walk with the client through their difficulties and successes rather than to simply direct the individual how or what to do. Our work generally calls on us to provide support during non-traditional hours, sometimes evenings or weekends, and requires the mentor to serve as a a role model and support to motivate necessary changes in individual's lives.
Most of the individuals we have worked with in mentoring relationships are in extremely desparate situations, sometimes facing homelessness. As we travel with individuals in their journey to improve their life situation and achieve their goals there are often financial needs that must be met in order for goals to be achieved. Limits, red tape, and waiting lists very often act as obstacles to very basic financial needs being met. While we work with individuals to explore every possible avenue related to financial assistance there is often a dead-end. For this reason CDI has founded the Hope Fund which will offer financial scholarships for specific purposes to individuals needing monetary assistance to achieve their goals.
The Hope Fund is controlled by an advisory board of community individuals who are not mentors or staff members of CDI. Individuals making a grant request will be introduced to the advisory board by their mentor and will present their scholarship need and its relation to their short-term or long-term goal. The advisory board will award or reject the scholarship. Unlike other financial support programs for at-risk populations the Hope Fund empowers individuals to present their own need, creating a positive system of ownership and investment. Additionally, because individuals have been and continue to work closely with mentors it is not the monetary support alone that is helping them, thus they are more likely to achieve their goals.
The Hope Fund advisory board meets monthly. For more information please contact
CDI Executive Director, Erin Martinez,
313.429.3766 ext 2077
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