Second Chances Mentoring Program

Second Chances Mentoring Program (SCMP) builds long-lasting, caring relationships between youth and mentors, fostering each youth’s individual growth and potential. SCMP helps to empower youth in our community to make positive life choices that enable them to maximize their potential.

The mentoring program requests that adult volunteers commit to supporting, guiding, and being a friend to a young person for a period of at least one year. By becoming part of the social network of adults and community members who care about the young people, the mentor can help youth develop and reach positive academic, career, and personal goals.

To Give You an Idea of What It Takes to Be a Mentor:

Mentor Role:

  • Take the lead in supporting a young person through an ongoing, one-on-one relationship
  • Serve as a positive role model and friend
  • Build the relationship by planning and participating in activities together
  • Strive for mutual respect
  • Build self-esteem and motivation
  • Help set goals and work toward accomplishing them

Time Commitment:

  • Make a one-year commitment
  • Spend a minimum of 8 hours per month one-on-one with a mentee
  • Communicate with the mentee weekly
  • Participation Requirements:
  • Be at least 21 years old
  • Reside in Los Angeles metro area
  • Be interested in working with young people
  • Desirable Qualities:
  • Willing listener
  • Encouraging and supportive
  • Patient and flexible
  • Tolerant and respectful of individual differences

Benefits:

  • Personal fulfillment through contribution to community and individual
  • Satisfaction in helping someone mature, progress, and achieve goals
  • Mentee/mentor group activities, complimentary tickets to community events, participant recognition events

Along with our regular mentoring program we also offer the following Specialized Mentoring Program: Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) Mentoring Children of Prisoners supports the creation and maintenance of one-on-one mentoring relationships between children of incarcerated parents and caring, supportive adult volunteer mentors. It takes a special heart to mentor children with incarcerated parents. Mentors in the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program receive additional training and support. Children with incarcerated parents face additional challenges related to community stigma, grief, single parent homes and poverty.

You can be the one to show one of these children new and exciting experiences such as going to the park, joining a book club, cheering for them when they reach their academic and extracurricular goals, or just making dinner. Fill in the gap by being present, dependable and committed to helping these children flourish in the midst of their parent(s) incarceration. Come have fun and make a difference at the same time.

The vision of Second Chances Mentoring Program is to provide successful mentoring relationships for all children who need and want them, contributing to brighter futures, better schools, and stronger communities for all.

Interested in becoming a Volunteer in our Mentoring Program? Sign Up Today!

Second Chances Leadership Program

Second Chances Leadership Program was designed to build and develop the self-confidence, life and leadership skills of youth through interactive learning, in-class discussions, presentations, panels, workshops, and exploratory field-trips. Upon conclusion, participants will be able to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of a leader’s core essentials through a service learning project, weekly homework and journaling assignments, discussions, presentations, and a culmination project.

Our youth will become ‘Ambassadors’ allowing them to become well versed in the theoretical and practical application of a leader’s core essentials and be capable of utilizing them within their home, school, and community. This allows them to personally develop through leadership programs and have access to tools and resources that not only helps such youth to apply to college, but also prepares them to succeed in life.

The Leadership Program consists of 5 modules that are 8 weeks in length. The modules expands our youth knowledge base by providing significant exposure to real-life work experiences, hands-on activities that challenge their decision making process, and intense cross-cultural volunteer projects both locally and abroad.

The components of the Leadership Program are as follows:

  • Education
  • Financial Literacy
  • Leadership (includes Civic and Service Learning (Volunteering))
  • Social Justice/Advocacy
  • Health

The youth in the Winter/Spring 2013 cohort came from the Imperial Courts Housing Projects in Watts.  They ended their program with a trip to Senegal, Africa, where they continued to build on their leadership development in partnership with the PeaceCorps by building a library and donating 600lbs of books.

To inquire about getting involved with the Leadership Program, please email our Leadership Program Coordinator, Patricia Wyatt at patricia@www.ffscinc.org. Otherwise, apply to our Leadership Program by using the online application below!

Leadership Appliction

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  • Emergency Contact:

  • Household Members:

  • Student Biography

  • Personal References

    Please list the contact information of two individuals you would like to use as personal references (preferred: Teacher, Principal, Mentor or Boss).
  • Permission Release and Liability Form

    I grant permission to Foundation for Second Chances, its representatives and employees the right to take photographs of my child. I authorize Foundation for Second Chances, its assigns and transferees to copyright, use and publish the same in print and/or electronically. I agree that Foundation for Second Chances may use such photographs of my child with or without my name and for any lawful purpose, including for example such purposes as publicity, illustration, advertising, and Web content.
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