Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced another step toward the three-year plan to deliver universal mentoring by 2018. Following a competitive process launched in December to build citywide mentoring capacity, 46 organizations and community-based partners have received contracts to increase mentoring next month for 1,200 youth in the city’s 22 most at-risk communities. To advance the mentoring initiative, a central tenet of the city’s public safety strategy, the Department of Family and Support Services launched a Request for Proposal (RFP) process. This process identified grassroots, community-based partners with a proven ability to link boys and young men in 8th, 9th and 10th grades to caring adults who will help to serve as positive role models, coaches and guides as youth navigate their teenage years.

In doing so, the goal is to connect the estimated 7,200 most at-risk young men, as identified by the University of Chicago’s crime lab, with the supports they need to remain on-track to graduate high school and to avoid involvement in the criminal justice system. While several dozen applicants applied, recipients represent a diverse mix of men- and women-owned and operated, and all have a demonstrated ability to scale up quickly to achieve the urgent priorities outlined by the Mayor’s Mentoring Initiative. The RFP originally set out to build capacity by 1,000, and will instead serve another 1,200 plus young males beginning next month. Mentorship has been proven to be an effective strategy for increasing high school graduation rates and reducing violence. Research by the University of Chicago Crime Lab suggests the promise of this approach for improving the life outcomes of vulnerable young men. The Crime Lab found that BAM reduces violent crime arrests among participants by 45-50 percent, and increases on-time high school graduation rates by 19 percent.