A Few Good Men - Male Recruitment Initiative

Last summer Youth Eastside Services (YES) started the work to develop a strategic plan to increase male mentor recruitment. So many mentoring programs strive to recruit more male mentors to befriend the large number of boys waiting for a mentor.  

To accomplish this initiative, YES mentoring staff first reviewed and analyzed a good deal of the available research on the challenges and issues regarding the recruitment of male mentors, most specifically the Corporation for National Service’s 1999 guide to recruiting male mentors. Staff then organized in September a focus group meeting five of the YES SUCCESS program’s current male mentors. The mentors were provided with a list of acknowledged male recruitment challenges before the meeting to better familiarize themselves with the problem. At the meeting, they were asked questions regarding their motivation in becoming a mentor, what doubts or concerns they had, what helped them overcome those concerns, what might YES do to overcome the concerns they learnt about and how might YES better promote and market the SUCCESS program to men. Following that, staff held a focus group meeting with YES male Board members who represented large local companies including Costco and Nintendo and were not themselves mentors. Questions raised there had to do with how they think of mentoring and what issues and challenges do they see inhibiting them or their peers from considering mentoring. YES staff has also met with three local youth pastors to discuss the challenge of male mentor recruitment and get their feedback (and hoped for future assistance) on how to address the problem. Staff also reviewed the current SUCCESS mentoring brochure and the current SUCCESS page on the YES web site with an eye to making both more inviting to prospective male mentors by addressing some of the concerns and issues that inhibit male mentoring. Both a new web site page and new SUCCESS brochure addressing those concerns are expected to be ready by January 31. Recognizing that sports activities can be an especially strong bonding experience for male mentors and mentees as well as an activity that can help address the concerns of prospective male mentors – ‘what would I do with my mentee’?, the YES SUCCESS program will begin in January a once a month sports activity for male mentors and mentees. The first activity will be basketball.

Feel free to contact YES about their “A Few Good Men” initiative;
Mel Baer, 425.747.4937 or melb@youtheastsideservices.org