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July 21, 2008
www.northfulton.com
FORSYTH COUNTY -- The Forsyth County School System is looking for a few good men - and women - to serve as student mentors.
"We want anyone who can give 30 minutes of their week during school hours," said Susie LeMieux-Brookshire, mentor coordinator for Forsyth.
Forsyth's mentoring program has been helping elementary and middle school age children for the past nine years. Mentors are paired with children who seem to struggle or withdraw in some area of their life.
"Different children deal with different problems. Our mentors are able to come in and work with a particular child on whatever that child's need is," said LeMieux-Brookshire. "You may find some students are doing great academically, but they're not doing well with their social skills."
Students in need of such help get a recommendation to enter the mentoring program from teachers, parents and school counselors, who serve as each school's contact person and ultimately determine which students should be matched with which mentor. The program is designed to accommodate matches of male mentors with male students and female mentors with male or female students.
The most recent count tallied the system's active mentors at 255 men and women – all deserve a mentor of the year plaque for their dedication, according to LeMieux-Brookshire.
"It's great, but we're just growing and growing and growing," LeMieux-Brookshire said. "This has become a very positive program and there is always a need for more mentors."
Filling the high demand becomes just a little more difficult when you consider schools that are out of the way geographically and always lack enough volunteers.
Potential mentors – which includes high school students and older – are able to pick the school at which they would like to mentor. Each applicant then goes through an application review by LeMieux-Brookshire and mentor of the year, John Goode, who has been mentoring for nearly six years.
Once approved, the applicant then goes through a background check and some basic training in order to start visiting the child they are assigned.
According to LeMieux-Brookshire, the training includes a guidebook and instruction on what a mentor is and is not.
"They're not there to be a parent or a counselor," said LeMieux-Brookshire. "They need to keep things confidential unless they are told something very concerning. We try to make it as easy as possible for the mentors, we want them to understand this about giving their time, not bringing gifts or anything like that."
Every school year a mentor of the year is designated by the Cumming-Forsyth Chamber of Commerce during their Partners in Education luncheon, at which a teacher of the year is also honored. The nominees are chosen by the schools at which they volunteer.
"This is a wonderful program, but I think people forget about it. They thinks it's ok, but we keep needing more and more mentors, every school has a waiting list," LeMieux-Brookshire said. "We know that children who are engaged in school do better in academics. It helps them to know that adults care about them, that Forsyth cares about them. Someone sees how they're doing every week. In the end it improves the graduation rate."
The next mentor training takes during the summer at the Board of Education Building on Dahlonega Highway. For more information or to volunteer call 770-887-2461 ext. 202339.
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