POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

LAUNCH “FOR EVERY SECTOR, A MENTOR” INITIATIVE:

Identify a network of mentoring organizations across New York City to build a coalition of providers and engage Business Associations and Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) to sign on to participate in this initiative for a minimum of 3 years with specific targets for both expansion of a young adults’ network and meaningful hiring goals to create access to career experiences and jobs across industries.

• The New York City Council should explore a legistlative policy change that would authorize BIDS and Business Associations to fund a pilot program through the taxes or membership fees they collect.

• Ensure each participating member organization conducts an equity analysis, including an evaluation of their readiness to implement Positive Youth Development Strategies.

By creating a coalition of mentoring organizations rather than relying on “one off” relationships with individual providers, New York City can capitalize on both general youth mentoring organizations, like BBBS of NYC, and those with a specific focus (LGBTQ+,

Immigrant Youth, Interest Specific Programming, etc.) to create a more inclusive initiative better able to serve the diverse needs and interests of NYC’s young people.

• Leveraging mentoring organizations allows the relationship between a mentor and

mentee to thrive by creating accountability in the relationship (particularly in the early stages of relationship formation), offering a space for continued training for mentors as well as an opportunity for youth to influence program changes while preserving child safety and bringing a trauma-informed approach to relationship building. This structure promotes the “Share Power”62 component of developmental relationships,63 integral to enabling mentoring to have a meaningful, lasting impact.

• Compensate youth participants for their participation in these programs to enable their full commitment and limit competition with other part-time opportunities available for high school aged young people, which is often their cited reason for opting out of continued programming year-over-year.

ESTABLISH INCENTIVES FOR BUSINESS PARTICIPATION INCLUDING:

Expanding the types of companies held accountable to the Community Reinvestment Act beyond financial institutions and clarify provisions of the law to make it apparent that investing in Work Based Learning opportunities and mentoring programs qualify.

• Making stipends for youth participants tax deductible for participating companies to ensure youth can fully participate in the multi-year program without the need to work an additional part-time job. This is particularly important as New York City recover as unemployment among 16 – 19-year-olds during COVID-19 skyrocketed to 31% in April 2020, more than double the national unemployment rate.64 Additionally, offer a tax credit for each young adult who accesses an internship (or job) at their company or in their sector.

• Creating and formalizing an NYC -wide “Dollars for Hours” program so employee volunteer hours from participating organizations turn into tax-deductible general operating support grants for non-profit organization as a way to streamline companies’ investment in the community.

• Allowing companies who commit to the full 3-year program receive some forgiveness

of capital gains taxes for the period of time they participate in the “For Every Sector a

Mentor Initiative”.

DEVELOP RELATIONSHIP MAPPING FRAMEWORK TO TRACK DOE ENROLLED STUDENTS’ NETWORK OF CONNECTIONS:

Following the innovative and seminal work of the Christensen Institute, captured in their July 2020 “The Missing Metrics” Report (Charania, Mahnaz, Ph.d, Fisher Freeland, Julia), this threepronged partnership between the business community, coalition of mentoring organizations and the DOE (housed under the “For Every Sector, A Mentor Initiative”) should implement their framework for measuring social capital using its “Four Dimensional Framework for Measuring Students Social Capital”.65

• Innovative work will allow for assessment of differences in access to relationships, diversity of connections and strength of network, all of which play a role in a young person’s long-term success.66

• The Department of Education should collect data for students through a surveying tool

that is embedded into existing evaluation periods. Evaluation of information should happen at a school level and with the oversight of the Principal resulting in a “connectedness score” for each student, which would identify which students would most greatly benefit from being linked to mentoring opportunities with partner organizations.

• New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) along with New York

City Small Business Services (NYC SBS) should play a role in partnering with the DOE to

identify sector partners, while holding the business community accountable for delivering high quality, Work-Based Learning experiences rooted in mentoring to students across the City. The engagement of these two organizations could provide oversight over the tax incentive programs by tracking the participation of companies.

• Creating a program with shared accountability between the DOE, NYC EDC and SBS,

and collation of expert mentoring organizations, New York City can position itself as the major leader in implementing a coordinated system that maps relationships across a young person’s life, with the goal of fostering upward mobility.

• Ensuring that young people are meeting academic benchmarks that align with market-

driven skills while also building programs that address the “network gap”, 68 our City will be better able to address the root causes of economic disparity in a coordinated, intentional effort that leverages: the expertise of youth development, mentoring professionals, the infrastructure of City systems along with the influence, wealth and resources of the private sector.

UPDATE SEL CURRICULUM TO INCLUDE DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT MENTORING THROUGHOUT A YOUNG PERSON’S ACADEMIC JOURNEY:

The majority of people learn about mentorship as they are looking to take a next step and are seeking out support too late for it to generate transformational impact. Mentoring and youth development organizations have also historically been engaged by schools, community, and religious organizations to support “at-risk” youth.

• While mentoring and credible messenger programs are evidence-based tools for risk

reduction, we must normalize mentoring as a necessary, additive and critical support for all young people rather than an intervention targeted at “the few” or the “underprivileged”.

• Introducing the concept of mentorship through a developmentally appropriate lens

to help young people make the connection between relationships and resources. Youth have largely positive associations with the word mentoring and view mentors as helpful to achieving their goals.69

• Offering youth resources to understand how mentoring can support achievement over

the course of their lives serves as an enhancement to existing SEL curriculum focused on setting and achieving goals. The SEL framework is also employed and utilized in program design by many existing mentoring organizations, further connecting what young people experience in school to experiences out of the classroom.