Working in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the 4 H National Mentoring Program supports the initiatives that assist in the development and maturity of community programs providing mentoring services to high-risk populations. The goal is to reduce juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, truancy, and other problems and high-risk behaviors. The program objective is to provide direct one-on-one mentoring, group mentoring, or peer-mentoring services to under-served youth populations.

Martin County has a lot of youth who fall into the high-risk population.  Data USA states that Martin County has a poverty level of 32.4%. Along with a high rate of poverty. This is well above the state and national averages.  Martin County has high rates of risky behavior such as smoking and opioid use. According to open data network, high school graduation rates are only 72.5% and college graduation is only 7.5%. With this in mind Martin County 4-H took advantage of the 4-H National Mentoring Program Grant to increase youth social competency, improve family relationships and increase academic success.

The pandemic has slowed us to start the programming year but we are looking for creative ways to meet student’s needs. Our program has focused completely on life skills.   When learning about each mentee we thought the best thing we could give them was preparation for life after high school.  We have touched on wide ranging subjects from cooking to automobile maintenance.

So far, the program has resulted in an initial impact.  We have renewed the grant for a 3rd year and look forward to many successes.