Enhancing Mentoring

Mentoring is incredibly important for young people. It’s more than just offering advice; it’s about being a reliable figure they can trust and look up to. This relationship helps young individuals develop life skills, boosts their confidence, and provides them with a sense of direction. Additionally, mentoring serves as a protective factor against substance use. By having someone to talk to and guide them, young people are less likely to turn to harmful substances as a means of coping with life’s challenges. Mentors provide the map and compass for young minds, demonstrating that the future is not merely a lottery of chance but a treasure of possibilities unlocked by choices and actions.

We don’t just train mentors, we recruit them as well. Matching caring adults to programs around the state is one of our key strategies for reducing substance use. Studies show, time and again, that young people with mentors are far less likely to use drugs and alcohol. Our mentor recruitment efforts focus on the communities that need mentors the most, but we also provide statewide recruitment and matching services. If you are considering becoming a mentor, there has never been a better time!
In Partnership with New Haven Public Schools, we created the state’s first mentee-referral portal specifically for New Haven students! The portal connected young people to mentoring programs in the New Haven area, where they could be matched with caring adults. Supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the portal was recently expanded to include the whole state as part of our R.E.A.L. program.
At the Partnership, we are laser-focused on mentor training, a mission to provide effective training and support to mentoring programs throughout Connecticut. We work together with local mentoring programs, often in collaboration with other experts, to design and implement specialized training to ensure that quality mentoring opportunities continue to exist for Connecticut’s youth. The Governor’s Prevention Partnership is an affiliate of MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership and an official Technical Assistance Provider of the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC), a project of MENTOR and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Governor’s Prevention Partnership builds statewide capacity to prevent underage drinking and substance use and builds strategic alliances to promote the overall well-being of Connecticut’s future workforce.