Just Us 4 Youth

The Art of Mentoring There are millions of blogs and articles out there on mentoring. With a simple google search thousands of pages will pop up and stare you in the face. Even after 18 years of mentoring experience, I still hit major roadblocks in my mentoring process with challenging students. I call these youth, “heavy hitters” because every effort from others to connect to them fails. Their lives have been full of trauma, abandonment, poverty and pain. I am not a quitter, so over the years in times like these I get creative in my efforts, hoping to resource myself to find a way to breakthrough. Hearing their stories and circumstances may help you understand my predicament a bit more. Male 18, gang affiliated, drug addicted I’ve been mentoring this young man for 2 years, but the process stalled. I seemed to be getting nowhere as he continued to “put in work” for his neighborhood bringing drugs, violence and destruction everywhere he went. Female 16, gang affiliated, ...