Communities In Schools Joins Leaders in Education to Promote Critical Investment in the Future at 2nd Annual National Mentoring Summit

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Communities In Schools will come together with other national youth mentoring organizations, Administration officials, civic leaders, corporate executives and the country’s foremost mentoring researchers in Washington this week at the second annual National Mentoring Summit. The event is intended to promote a pathway for ensuring our nation’s youth receive quality mentoring and guidance that will enable them to have a promising future.

MENTOR, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the U.S. Department of Justice – Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Harvard School of Public Health, and United Way Worldwide comprise the Host Committee for the Summit, which will be held at The Fairmont in Washington, D.C., January 24 and 25, 2012. In addition to the committee, 20 youth-serving partner organizations, including Communities In Schools, are working to support the event. Communities In Schools offices in Arizona and North Carolina have been asked to take over mentoring programs in their respective states. Representatives from both Communities In Schools state offices will be in attendance to learn more about the strides being made to provide quality mentoring to more students nationwide.

“We are both honored and privileged to join such a solid group of organizations dedicated to furthering the education of today’s youth,” said Dan Cardinali, president of Communities In Schools. “Mentoring is such a critical part of what we do at Communities In Schools and we are fortunate that through events like this, we can work together to build stronger support for the children we serve.”

The theme for this year’s Summit is, “Invest in the Future: Mentor a Child.” The Summit will include a corporate leadership session, where many of the nation’s corporate leaders will discuss examples and strategies for deepening private sector investment and volunteerism directed toward expanding quality youth mentoring. The session is a follow-up to First Lady Michelle Obama’s original “Corporate Mentoring Challenge” call to action at the inaugural 2011 summit.

The two-day event will also bring together approximately 500 key mentoring stakeholders to enhance the quality and impact of the field, chart the mentoring field’s future and expand its circle of influence to focus the power of mentoring on measurable outcomes. In addition, the event will provide the culminating moment for the 11^th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, which is the national media campaign conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR and the Corporation for National and Community Service to raise awareness about mentoring. Thousands of people in all 50 states participate in National Mentoring Month events.

“More than 20 years ago, MENTOR was created as a catalyst to grow the mentoring movement in the United States, and today, mentoring is a large and vital field with more than 5,000 programs serving three million young people,” said MENTOR’s Chairman Willem Kooyker. “This National Mentoring Summit will give mentoring stakeholders the opportunity to come together so we can continue our combined effort to invest, through quality mentoring, in the 15 million children who are still waiting for a caring adult in their lives.”

Summit participants will include representatives invited from MENTOR’s network of affiliated Mentoring Partnerships and from Host Committee and Summit Partner networks, as well as National Mentoring Month local partners.

About MENTOR

MENTOR is the lead champion for youth mentoring in the United States. MENTOR’s goal is to help children by providing a public voice, developing and delivering resources to mentoring programs nationwide and promoting quality for mentoring through standards, cutting-edge research and state of the art tools. MENTOR works closely with State Mentoring Partnerships and volunteer centers throughout the country, serving more than 3 million children in all 50 states. There are currently 18 million children in the U.S. who want and need a mentor but only three million have one. MENTOR’s mission is to close that gap so that every one of those 15 million children has a caring adult in his or her life. Founded in 1990, MENTOR is headquartered in Alexandria, Va. For more information, visit www.mentoring.org.

About Communities In Schools

Communities In Schools surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. Through a school-based site coordinator, Communities In Schools connects students and their families with critical community resources, tailored to local needs. Working in nearly 3,000 schools, in the most challenged communities in 25 states and the District of Columbia, Communities In Schools serves more than 1.3 million young people and their families every year. It has been shown through an independent evaluation to be the nation’s only dropout prevention organization proven to both increase graduation rates and reduce dropout rates. Visit our website at www.communitiesinschools.org.

About National Mentoring Month

National Mentoring Month is a national campaign to recruit volunteer mentors, spearheaded by The Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Held each January, the campaign highlights the crucial role played by mentors in helping young people achieve their potential. The campaign’s goals are to mobilize larger numbers of community volunteers to serve as mentors to young people and to promote awareness of the power of mentoring to enhance a young person’s prospects for leading a healthy and productive life. Research shows that mentoring programs have beneficial and long-term effects, increasing the rate of high school graduation and college attendance and decreasing the likelihood of substance abuse and other risky behaviors. For more information about National Mentoring Month, visit www.nationalmentoringmonth.org.