BE A MENTOR— They need you!
For those with an incarcerated parent, mentorship provides steady guidance, emotional support, and practical tools that a single intervention cannot. Our mentors offer consistent presence, model positive behaviors, and help young people navigate academic, social, and personal challenges that often arise from the trauma and instability of parental incarceration.
Mentorship Matters
Stability and trust: Many children in our programs experience frequent change and uncertainty. A committed mentor supplies a reliable adult relationship that fosters trust, safety, and emotional resilience.
Academic support and encouragement: Mentors reinforce the value of education, help set realistic goals, assist with study habits, and connect youth to scholarship and extracurricular opportunities. This support increases school engagement and educational attainment.
Life skills and character development: Through ongoing interaction, mentors teach decision-making, problem-solving, time management, and communication skills. These character-building lessons help young people make healthy choices and pursue long-term aspirations.
Identity and self-worth: Children with an incarcerated parent can internalize stigma and low expectations. Mentors affirm their strengths, celebrate progress, and expand horizons, strengthening self-esteem and belief in personal potential.
Access to resources and networks: Mentors link youth to community services, internships, college preparatory resources, and professional networks—opening doors that might otherwise remain closed.
Prevention and positive outcomes: Research and practice show mentorship reduces risky behaviors, supports mental health, and increases the likelihood of graduation and employment. Consistent mentorship interrupts cycles of disadvantage and contributes to sustainable life-course improvement.
Mentoring promotes positive values
The emotional distress of being separated from a parent due to arrest and incarceration can be traumatizing for any child, and has a greater impact on a child who witnesses his/her parent’s arrest. In many cases, the incarcerated parent was the primary provider, at the time of arrest, and is forced to leave his/her children with a family member or sometimes foster care. As a result of the transition of moving or living in a home without their parents, some children experience uncertainty, anxiety, may develop low self-esteem and negative feelings about themselves, as they transition from one home to another.
…and improves their commitment to learning
Among the most important ways mentoring helps children is to improve their commitment towards school. The lack of direct parental assistance and minimal educational support are some factors that can often result in reduced academic enthusiasm or emotional distractions among students. Studies show that youth mentoring plays a pivotal role in helping children, with currently or previously incarcerated parents, to focus on school.
It goes without saying that school work is important in preparing children for the future, and our U.S. Dream Academy staff and mentors are committed to helping to prepare students to excel academically. Our U.S. Dream Academy mentors help children develop positive attitudes towards school attendance and reinforce the importance of good academic performance while providing educational assistance as part of our 1-to-1 and group mentoring eactivities.
Mentoring helps establish values
Children, whose lives have been impacted by parental incarceration, with little opportunity to develop a relationship with their parent, can experience negative emotions. Often, it’s hard for young people to express in words, what they are feeling on the inside; therefore, the expression of their negative feelings may be displayed in ways such as frustration, lack of interest, anger, or even unwillingness to talk to others. By becoming a mentor, you can take part in active guidance of affected children and contribute to their holistic development through a mentor-mentee relationship built on consistency and mutual respect.
The absence of a parent due to incarceration can be very confusing for children, especially for children who have few other stable adults. Children will feel a sense of loss similar to the death of a parent and yet children who have a parent incarcerated, don’t often receive sympathy or concern, rather they often feel a sense of shame and stigma. Having a mentor who understands this and does not judge the child for his/her parent’s action, creates a safe place where a trusting relationship can develop. Research shows that having at least one caring and supportive adult relationship outside of your family can help improve social and emotional development.
With a committed mentor that makes a personal investment into a child’s life, the youth mentoring relationship helps in the development of positive values such as integrity, respect, honesty, and responsibility for the child. Mentors also help children to consider the outcomes of positive and negative behavior; thus, helping the child to make better decisions that align with their goals.
How do mentorships work?
Individualized relationships: Each mentorship is tailored to the youth’s needs, goals, and circumstances, allowing for targeted support and measurable progress.
Integrated with scholarships and programming: Mentorship complements financial aid and character-building curricula, creating a holistic support system that addresses both material and developmental needs.
Long-term commitment: We prioritize ongoing relationships rather than short-term engagements to ensure mentors can guide mentees through critical transitions—middle school to high school, high school to college or career.
Trained, vetted mentors: Our mentors receive training in trauma-informed care, cultural competence, and youth development to respond effectively and ethically to the complex needs of participants.
and gives them structure and guidance
It’s a fact of life that every child requires guidance, and making mistakes is part of every child’s development. A very important factor to redirecting at-risk behaviors of a child includes positive behavior encouragement and support from caring adults during the stages of child development. In addition to the child’s parents, other supportive adults 6(i.e. teacher, sports coach, family relative, faith-based leader, or mentor), can have a great influence on a child.
Many children of incarcerated parents feel abandoned; therefore, mentoring helps provide children with a caring adult (who is viewed as a friend) that they can trust and rely on. By doing activities with your mentee, you’ll have many opportunities to have fun, build a friendship bond, and encourage your mentee to feel good about themselves.
Mentoring helps them develop social skills
Children who have experienced early trauma, and have not had the opportunity to heal, from events such as witnessing violence in their community, loss of a parent to incarceration, or the sudden relocation from one home to another may have difficulty with trusting others. They may exhibit social behaviors associated with depression, voluntary isolation, and resistance to conflict resolution because of how they are feeling inside about traumatic or life-shifting events in their lives.
As cited by the National Mentoring Resource Center, positive mentoring relationships that are emotionally engaging through trust, empathy, and mutual sharing of thoughts and feelings produce social and emotional growth in youth. Research shows that some of the outcomes of an engaging mentor-mentee relationship are an improvement in the child’s relationship with their peers, parents, and other adults; improvement in their overall well-being and future success in life.
mentor : a trusted, experienced guide who provides advice, support, and knowledge to a less experienced person, commonly in a professional or academic setting; foster growth by sharing wisdom; promote professional development similar to a coach or advisor.
