The Need for Mentoring in the Bay Area
A Social Disconnect — continued

 

George Bernard Shaw said “The problem with poor people is poverty.” But helping people out of poverty is not just a matter of attending to their material needs.

Welfare checks, food stamps, subsidized housing – these are helpful but insufficient. They have not demonstrated any wide effectiveness at addressing the symptoms and causes of concentrated, multi-generational poverty.

 

Looking at these symptoms and causes, it’s no wonder:

• Children living in concentrated, multi-generational poverty are less connected – to their schools, to their neighborhoods, and to the expectations of the wider world.
• They are exposed to more violence.
• They are less supported by adults, and so must turn to peer groups.
• They have more stress and fewer places to turn to relieve it.
• They have fewer opportunities to develop the skill sets that lead to a better life – or even know what those are.
• They have few positive role models.
• They come to have lower expectations for themselves – and to cope with the disappointments of the present by not dreaming of a better tomorrow.

These are not problems that can be solved with a donation. Attending to the material needs of these children is important – but attending to their lack of connectedness, their lack of social capital, is critical.

 

How do we do that?

In her book “Safe Passage: Making it through a Risky Society,” Joy Dryfoos notes that young people who choose to make healthy decisions and escape their high-risk environment all share one characteristic: there is a caring adult who helped them – either a parent, relative or mentor.

Children in entrenched poverty are no different from their middle-and-upper-class peers: they need responsible, caring, consistently present adults in their lives who can model behavior and provide a connection to the larger world.

With such adults present, children in even the most entrenched poverty have proven capable of pulling themselves out and changing the course of history.

At Big Brothers Big Sisters, we see that happening every day. The process by which children are matched with an adult who can play this role in their lives is called “Mentoring.”

 

1. Introduction
2. The Epidemic
3. Reasons of Poverty
4. Reasons of Poverty continued
5. Social Disconnect
6. Social Disconnect continued
7. Social Disconnect continued
8. Mentoring is the Answer
9. Mentoring is the Answer continued
10. BBBSBA Works on the Bottom Line
11. Final Thoughts