Mentors provide social capital by giving children responsible role models; by providing a sense of society’s expectations; by opening their horizons to new possibilities; by answering questions about those possibilities; and by giving them a sense that they are part of a larger network rather than condemned to society’s fringe.

Mentoring is not a quick fix with instant results: it is a long term investment in a better tomorrow. Significant benefits from mentoring often don’t begin manifesting until after the first year of the match.

However, in the long-term, mentoring works – a small army of studies demonstrate that – and once mentoring in an area reaches a “critical mass,” the social decay caused by concentrated, multi-generation poverty can be reversed neighborhood by neighborhood.

As children in areas of entrenched poverty get mentors, their risk factors for unhealthy behaviors go down; once enough children have mentors, the risk factors of the entire neighborhoods will decline. Once a critical mass is reached, the social dynamics begin to work for children instead of against them: more children have the social capital to access adults who model positive behavior, and these children will in turn create an environment of heightened expectations for their peers and younger siblings. “Peer pressure” will lead towards healthy behaviors.

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