Children in the Big Brothers and Big Sisters in Butler County reported:
97% maintained positive self-confidence
75% were able to avoid delinquincy
84% maintained or positively improved academic performance
77% demonstrated a strong sense of the future
After 18 months of spending time with their Bigs, the Little Brothers and Little Sisters, compared to those children not in the program, were:
• 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs
• 27% less likely to begin using alcohol
• 52% less likely to skip school
• 37% less likely to skip a class
• 33% less likely to hit someone
Sources: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Butler County, 2011; Public/Private Ventures, 2001.
It’s not hard to find a personal success story coming out of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.
The Butler County agency, which employs 11 full-time and four part-time people plus two interns, currently serves more than 700 children by setting up one-to-one mentoring relationships between at-risk children and qualified adults as well as group activities designed to give the young people some guidance while staff members search for matches among the limited supply of volunteers.
To do this, Big Brothers Big Sisters has developed relationships with area school districts, Miami University, the Boys and Girls Clubs and the Butler County Juvenile Justice Center, along with a dozen local corporate partners, three different United Way and the Hamilton Community Foundation to help meet their $700,000 annual budget.
“We have a couple of different programs with Big Brothers Big Sisters,” said Rob Clevenger, director of the Juvenile Justice Center, including one that is specifically targeted toward minority youth and a student referral process.
“When we have minority youth come into the system, we have a resource available to hook them up with an adult role model,” he said. “Our staff does an assessment to determine what would benefit this youth to help them help themselves.”
A national impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters programs by the research organization Public/Private Ventures demonstrated that, when compared to a control group of youngsters from similar socioeconomic situations, youngsters who were pared with a Big Brother or Big Sister were 46 percent less likely to begin using illegal drugs, one-third less likely to hit someone and were generally more confident in their school performance.
Through its association with the Juvenile Justice Center, the Butler County BBBS reports that only 5 percent of children placed into their agency incurred a second offense.
“One common thing we find is that (the children) lack a positive male role model, and we believe that putting a significant other person in the life of the child will help them shape their lives in a better way,” Clevenger said. “When you look at a hardened offender, you’re looking at someone who was at one time a struggling kid.”
“We’ve seen kids come from terrible environments and Big Brothers Big Sisters put someone in there to help them manage the craziness of their lives,” he said.
Two of those Bigs were recently honored as Big Sister and Big Brother of the Year for Butler County.
“Emily Stamper is an awesome Big,” said a nomination that led to Stamper being named Big Sister of the Year for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Butler County. Stamper is a mentor to Kloe Profitt, a student at Rosa Parks Elementary in Middletown.
Their three-year relationship has helped Profitt improve her manners and take responsibility for her actions, according to the nominator.
“Emily’s consistency has improved Kloe’s life,” the nominator said. “She is loving, kind, firm and nurturing toward Kloe.”
Likewise, Big Brother of the Year Charlie McNutt has not only taught Little Brother Tony Compress, who lives with his grandmother in West Chester Twp., to swim, but has helped him make friends at a church youth group and has encouraged him to show respect for his grandmother and to get along better with his siblings.
Clevenger said, however, that BBBS is a “limited resource” simply because of the lack of volunteers to be mentors to these young people.
And that’s especially true for male volunteers, according to Melissa Gadd, BBBS’s enrollment team leader.
“We have 130 kids on our waiting list, and 24 of them are girls,” she said. “In the last three months, I’ve interviewed two male volunteers.”
It’s Gadd’s job to screen the volunteers who express an interest in becoming a Big, including running background checks on all applicants.
She also wants to make certain potential Bigs know what they’re getting into. The program asks that the mentor spend at least an hour a week with their Little, while many spend much more than that.
“If someone is working and going to school or just really busy with a lot of other activities, I’ll tell them they just don’t have the time to volunteer,” she said.
“Most people are able to work the commitment into their leisure time activities,” said Executive Director Carolyn Winslow. “It doesn’t matter so much what they do together, the benefit is just the one-on-one time they share.”
After the match is made and the volunteer agrees to give it at least a year, they are assigned to one of the match support specialists on staff.
“We’re required to make contact with them at least once a month,” said Kelley Eversole, who maintains a caseload of about 70 matches. “It’s usually over the phone, and we’ll discuss with the volunteer what kind of changes they’ve seen in their Little, things like increase in grades or a decrease in misbehavior. I also have a number of surveys and questionnaires to go over with them.
“And we’ll work on match plans, to go over the goals they’re working on throughout the year,” she said. “For the most part, it’s just to develop a relationship and try to resolve any issues so that we don’t have to close a match.”
“The biggest challenge for us is just keeping the money coming in,” Winslow said. “The last four or five years have been tough on us. While the economy has made it harder to get money coming in, it has also increased the number of kids we have needing our service.
“We can’t charge our volunteers and we don’t get anything like Medicare funding,” she said. “We could never charge a family to have a Big Brother or Big Sister. That would be horrible.”
Although the Butler County agency is tied to the national organization, they don’t receive any funding from it.
“We actually pay dues to national,” Winslow said.
When the agency was founded in 1968, it was focused almost entirely on single-mother homes, Winslow said, but through programs such as those that include the juvenile justice system, have expanded the scope and impact of what the agency does. Simply put, if the mentoring relationship keeps a kid from turning to drugs and crime, the whole society benefits from the arrangement.
BBBS has also turned to group outings to help occupy children who have been referred to the program but remain on the waiting list for a match. “Cool Club” meets monthly during the school year and twice a month during the summer for activities that might include crafts, games and field trips.”
In addition to the good work they do, Winslow said there’s one really big reason to get involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters: “It’s fun,” she said.
“I wish I could communicate that more to people,” she said. “If you know what you’re doing is fun and it’s been proven to make a difference in the life of a child, then more people would be more likely to join in.”
About the Author