January is National Mentoring Month, and OYA celebrates the many mentors who support youth on their journey to become productive, crime-free adults. Much of this work unfolds in small moments, such as a November coffee between a youth and his mentor, Andre White.
Mr. White arranged the coffee after the youth shared that he needed to start earning money. Mr. White then reached out to an organization that could help the youth both earn money and gain meaningful professional experience: the Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, more widely known as POIC.
POIC Career Coach Andrea Robinson arrived with questions to help focus the youth’s search, resources for him to consider, and paperwork to get the process moving. Over roughly an hour, she walked the youth through it all with the goal of identifying ways that POIC might support him.
Like many OYA youth, this young man’s time in custody meant that he was looking for his first job. His time between periods of incarceration was short and filled with family tasks, school, or helping at his mom’s small business. Now, though, he was almost 18 and just “really wanted to move forward with my life and do better” – which meant earning a regular paycheck.
Andrea led the youth from a granular discussion about jobs up to bigger questions of goals. His short term goals (“finish school, get off the papers, and just really keep moving forward”) gave way to bigger questions from her (“If you were to – no, when you go to college, what do you think you’d be interested in studying?”). She prompted the youth to think about what, ideally, he would want in a workspace: “think about shifts, think about what type of supervisor you want, working environment, do you like to work with your hands, be outside, inside, stuff like that.” She took detailed, copious notes and committed to following up with concrete ideas within the week.
For most of the conversation, Mr. White left the youth space to speak. He would chime in when he felt the youth had underestimated himself, and he would highlight attributes the youth didn’t see in himself. Mr. White also kept a running list of things they needed to do together and provided information the youth didn’t have. And when the conversation drifted further away from the youth’s expressed needs, Mr. White brought it back around.
Afterwards, in the car home, Mr. White helped the youth process the experience. He provided reassurance that it was “going to work out,” and made clear that they shared responsibility for success (“We’ll make it happen, we’ll make it work”). When the youth worried about the pay, Mr. White reassured him that “we can look at finding you another job, too” – again, sharing the responsibility. He let the youth know he was “one of our kids.”
As they reminisced, Mr. White reinforced the youth’s pride in his progress. Mr. White praised him for “doing a good job now” and “really seeing the other part of life.” When the youth mentioned a recent slip-up, Mr. White didn’t let him off the hook, but also praised him for doing something “hard to do” and demonstrating “wisdom.” And subtly, he built the youth back up with small moments of praise (e.g. “you’re doing it” and “you got it”).
What was abundantly clear was that, in this young man, Mr. White had also nurtured a sense of responsibility to others. The youth expressed how important it was to have “people who stick their neck out for you” and “relationships that don’t erase over time.” The youth suggested that kids gravitate to gangs when they’re in “survival mode” and “feel unwanted.” Returning to his future plans, he committed to supporting young people to “do something productive” and supporting them in ways that “weren’t around when I needed them.”
This is the multidimensional impact of mentors, whether they work with OYA youth or elsewhere. They help an individual sort through the next steps in their life, sharing the decisions and refining the life skills everyone needs. But they also model a fundamentally positive worldview with the power to compound: each of us has the capacity to help someone live a better life.