Clubhouse staff lead workshop on amplifying youth voice
The Clubhouse Network is proud to be a supporting partner of The National Mentoring Summit, January 27-29, 2021. The 11th annual event will focus on “Rising to the Moment” and all the ways our relationship-centered movement has evolved, adapted, and been there for young people. The Summit will bring together the nationwide mentoring movement, including practitioners, researchers, philanthropic investors, youth leaders, government and civic leaders, and MENTOR’s local Affiliates for this annual opportunity to advance a collective mentoring agenda, strengthen programs and practices, and collaborate to support positive youth development through mentoring.
This annual summit takes place every January during National Mentoring Month. National Mentoring Month was launched in 2002 by the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, and Corporation for National and Community Service. It’s an opportunity for us to celebrate and honor our mentors, recognizing the crucial role of mentoring in Clubhouses around the world.
Clubhouse staff will give a presentation entitled, “Mic Check: Setting the Stage for Youth Leaders.” This workshop will discuss how programs can incorporate youth voice and opinions into mentoring programming and operations. Participants in the workshop will consider how to foster youth leadership opportunities and how to involve them in decision making. The workshop will be led by Jennifer Bourgoin, Mentor Program Manager at The Clubhouse Network, Tricia Howell, Mentor Coordinator at The C4K Clubhouse in Charlottesville, VA, USA, and Desi and Asad, two members from C4K.
C4K’s mission is to help youth achieve personal confidence and academic success, start a path toward self-sustaining careers and be prepared to serve as community leaders. C4K brings our mission to life by empowering youth from low-income families with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) skills through evidence-based mentoring programming. In Charlottesville City Schools, the average on-time graduation rate for students of color is 84%. For economically disadvantaged students, it is 81%. However, in our 17-year history as a mentoring organization, 98% of C4K members graduate high school on time and over 92% of those went on to attend college.
Mentor: The National Mentoring Partnership aims to close the mentoring gap and drive equity through quality mentoring relationships for young people. MENTOR believes potential is equally distributed; opportunity is not. They work to activate a movement across sectors that is diverse and broad and seeps into every aspect of daily life, connecting and fueling opportunity for young people everywhere they are from schools to workplaces and beyond.
Since 1993, The Clubhouse Network has been building and supporting creative and safe out-of-school learning environments where young people from underserved communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop new skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology. Through the Clubhouse Network’s unique group mentoring program, Clubhouse Mentors join a community of young people and adults who create, invent, and explore together using the latest in technology. The Clubhouse Network was recently awarded the nation’s highest honor in STEM mentoring, The Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).