MANA Step Out Club
What is the MANA Step Out Club?
It is a school based Mentoring program that offers a curriculum of topics and issues that takes place within the local schools in the community. It acts as a buffer between the existing wellbeing teams and other faculties in order to create a sense of leadership, support and brotherhood within the students.
How?
The first step is holding a workshop at the school and then the youth who participated can opt in to be a part of the club which includes weekly meetings with a mentor. Young People opt in to the workshop and then into the club once they have taken the workshop. The school can help in identifying students that would benefit most. And the appointed Mentor works with the existing student wellbeing team in everything they do.
Once the club is established there are weekly meetings and the members establish leadership roles and the mentor leads them through a curriculum.
What happens at the Meetings?
The weekly Jam is a session that holds a space for young people participating in the program. There is a loose curriculum of issues and topics to assist each individual, but the most important part is simply checking in to their lives, listening and sharing their weekly concerns, achievements and anything else they wish to discuss. It is an environment that nurtures and supports a sense of brotherhood; and a place where inclusiveness and non-judgement is paramount.
What, or Who is a Mentor?
MANA Mentors are Men in the community who understand the needs of young men in their environments. They are people who have gone through mentor training or hold a certificate IV or Diploma in Youth Work related fields or may even be a graduate of the MANA Club themselves. They have Working with Children Checks and have undergone the required Police Checks to be able to work at schools.
School Based Mentors
Benefits of Mentoring for Young People
There are many benefits of youth mentoring, below is just an example of some of these benefits:
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Increased high school graduation rates & Better academic performance:
A 1995 study of the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program found mentored youth earned higher grades than a similar group of young people who did not have mentors (Tierny, Grossman, & Resch, 1995). Further, the 2007 study of the program found youth in school-based mentoring programs turned in higher quality class work, did better academically (especially in science and written and oral communication), and completed more of their assignments than their peers who did not have mentors. -
Better School Attendance:
Youth with mentors had fewer unexcused absences from class than students without mentors (Tierny, Grossman, Resch, 2000; Herrera, Grossman, Kauh, Feldman, McMaken, & Jucovy, 2007). For example, youth participating in the Across Ages mentoring program showed a gain of more than a week of classes attended, compared with those youth not participating in the program (Jekielek et al., 2002). -
Healthier Relationships and Lifestyle Choices:
Findings from a study of the Across Ages mentoring program showed that mentees gained important life skills to help them stay away from drugs (LoSciuto, Rajala, Townsend, & Taylor, 1996). -
Decreased Violent Behaviours and Drug use:
Mentees in the BBBS program were 32 percent less likely to report having hit someone over the past year than the young people without mentors (Tierny et al., 1995). Jekielek et al. (2002) found that four mentoring programs showed reductions of some behaviours related to delinquency and negative behaviours but did not eliminate all delinquent behaviours. -
Enhanced Self-Esteem and Self Confidence:
Mentoring has also been linked in studies to social-emotional development benefits, improvements in youth perceptions of parental relationships, and better prospects for moving on to higher education. Also contributing to the young person stepping out of comfort zones more easily in order to develop new passions and positive friendships
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Improved Interpersonal Skills
Having a positive adult role model does wonders for the developing young person. Young people come from a vast socio-economic landscape which sometimes dictates their environments and attitudes to the world around them. Often they are having an internal struggle between discovering their individual identity and uniqueness and following in the footsteps of their family members. Developing a positive relationship with a mentor not only helps them step out of this internal conflict, but improves relationships with other adults in their lives including teachers, employers etc
