Our Programs
COMMUNITY-BASED PROGRAMS
The Community-Based program serves youth in 28 cities and towns in the southeastern Massachusetts area. It brings local mentors age 19 and older together with youth ages 6-15 years old in their local community to spend 2-4 hours a week in a mentoring relationship for a minimum of one calendar year.
One-to-One Community-Based Mentoring: The vision of the Big Sister Big Brother Program is to connect youth with positive adult role models to aid in a healthy transition from childhood to adolescence and into a morally admirable adult. This traditional one-to-one mentoring program establishes a relationship between a mentor and a youth that is positive, caring, and consistent while fostering self-confidence, social competency, and an asset-rich environment. Matches choose their own activities and often go to the park, go bowling, attend sporting events, or sometimes just stay in and make dinner together.
While-U-Wait Events: Youth waiting to be matched in the Community-Based program are invited to attend monthly events hosted by BSBB. These events range from local college football games to field trips to musicals in Boston's Theater District. By providing youth with activities each month, the BSBB staff gets to know the youth to assure the best match is made when picking a Big Sister or Big Brother.
FOSTER CARE MENTORING PROGRAMS
The OJJDP foster care mentoring program provides a mix of both site and community based mentoring to children who are in the Brockton foster care system ages 12 and older. Our program objectives are to support academic performance, life skill development, job readiness, and positive decision-making. Using the DCF Preparing Adolescents for Young Adulthood (PAYA) model we create a curriculum that teaches the necessary independent life skills. PAYA modules will be taught through mentoring activities within a group and one-on-one in the community. The goal of matching the child and mentor one-to-one is to establish a positive relationship between the two while teaching the child the skills that are necessary to live on their own. The mentors will meet with their little weekly at either the Brockton Teen (Fruth) Center or in a community based setting.
SITE-BASED PROGRAMS
Site-Based programs bring college students from Stonehill College and Bridgewater State College to afterschool programs in the Brockton area for one hour a week during the academic year. BSBB brings volunteers to nine different afterschool sites: Old Colony Y (OCY) Youth Branch, OCY Family Life Center, Boys & Girls Club, the Cape Verdean Association, three Brockton Housing Authority Community Centers (Roosevelt Heights, Hillside Village, and Crescent Courts), South Middle School, and Kennedy Elementary School.
One-to-One S.M.A.S.H. Program: S.M.A.S.H. (Students Mentoring After School Hours) is a "power hour" of one-to-one mentoring that takes place at afterschool programs in the community. Matches meet once a week for the academic year. Big Sisters/Brothers ("Bigs") and Little Sisters/Brothers ("Littles") also participate in 3 service-learning projects together throughout the school year, such as making baby blankets for young children with cancer, or making signs for Special Olympics participants. The time they spend together allows the Little to increase his self-confidence, experience diversity, and learn about attending college!
One-to-One SportsMENship Program: This program began in the fall of 2008 as a team effort between BSBB and Stonehill's Varsity Football program. As of this year we are now excited to be working with the Stonehill Baseball team! SportsMENship is a one-to-one mentoring program for middle school males. The program has a sports emphasis, as all of the mentors are student athletes, and the major goals are drop-out and violence prevention. Discussions and activities focus on education, peaceful conflict resolution, respect for women, and drug/alcohol resistance. Student athletes make excellent mentors because they are natural leaders, attending college, and are currently playing sports at a competitive level. An additional goal is for the young men in the program to recognize the importance of being a student-athlete, not just an athlete; seeing that ultimately these men are leaving college with a degree and will pursue a career outside of sports.
One-to-One Teaming-Up Program: Beginning 6 years ago with the Stonehill Girls Varsity Lacrosse team, and now expanding to the Stonehill Girls Volleyball team. This program brings college women athletes together with youth in Brockton. These teams are great mentors as they all volunteer together as a team and bring their teamwork and relationship building to the kids giving them an example to emulate. The teams volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club as well as the Old Colony Y Youth Branch after school program.
One-to-One Boys R.U.L.E. Program: Boys in fourth grade are mentored by a service learning class of Bridgewater State College students. This program focuses on Respect, Understanding, Listening, and Expressing Emotions (R.U.L.E.), and was developed in collaboration with Massachusetts Campus Compact and Learn and Serve. The Bridgewater State College students have one day of in-class instruction and planning with psychology professor Ruth Hannon, and one day of on-site programming to conduct activities for the boys. This program is designed to help young boys interact with their peers in a respectful, understanding way. It also builds their self confidence, as they work together with kids they may not normally interact with. The program runs once a week, for an hour and a half, and culminates with a field trip and campus tour at Bridgewater State College.
One-to-One SMArt Program: The SMArt (Student Mentoring through the Arts) Program targets youth in grades five through seven; they are mentored by Bridgewater State College art students once a week during the school year. SMArt focuses on art as a medium to youth mentoring; the college students and the youth work on various projects together each week. These projects help facilitate conversations about school, jobs, aspirations for the future, and more. Each youth creates a portfolio, adding their projects to it each week. Previous projects include creating new superheroes using the human figure, and making molds of each youth's hand.
Girls TRYumph! Program: This is a program for middle school girls. Girls TRYumph! addresses girls' empowerment, self-esteem, healthy relationships and body image, utilizing the "Girls Circle" curriculum. The program is conducted at the OCY Youth Branch and the Boys & Girls Club. It is led by female students from Stonehill College who are interested in sharing their experiences growing up into the successful women they are today. This group provides a safe, welcoming environment for the girls to discuss the issues and pressures facing girls today as they become young women. Also, by participating in this group mentoring program, the young girls learn how to interact with their peers in a respectful, caring manner. One of the most powerful components of this program is the journals that each of the Littles keep. They are welcome to write about anything that is on their mind, and the group leaders write back to them each week!
Old Colony YMCA Big Sister Big Brother
465 Main Street
Brockton, MA 02301
508-587-4242
bsbb@oldcolonyymca.org
