Mentoring Youth. In Focus. NCJ 253045

• Published in: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• Main Author: Ryan, Liz
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 01.01.2022
• Subjects: At Risk Persons; Delinquency; Delinquency Prevention; Drug Addiction; Juvenile Justice; Mentors; Narcotics; Program Descriptions; Youth

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) invests in mentoring programs and services to help ensure positive outcomes for youth. Successful mentoring relationships have been shown to increase youth's self-esteem, improve academic achievement, and steer them away from delinquency, substance use, and other high-risk behaviors. The Office works with its partners to boost mentor recruitment, enhance mentor-mentee matches, and increase the number of youth who have mentors. From 2017 through the first half of 2021, OJJDP's programs recruited nearly 143,000 new mentors and served more than 971,000 youth nationwide. Diverse populations of youth benefit from OJJDP's mentoring programs, including those impacted by opioids and drug addiction, youth in rural communities, American Indian and Alaska Native youth, children of parents on active military duty, and children of incarcerated parents.