Resilience Community Mentoring Program

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

The San Diego County Probation Department developed a comprehensive credible messenger mentoring program called Resilience, modeled after New York City's Arches Program which employs people formerly or currently in the justice system to mentor justice-involved youth and young adults to assist in their rehabilitation and in reducing recidivism. The program focuses on mentors and mentees from similar backgrounds. A majority of the mentees were born and raised in Oceanside, from various gang neighborhoods, so we intentionally recruited mentors that were also from Oceanside. Mentees include youth/young adults currently on Juvenile Probation, including those supervised by a gang or Youthful Offender Unit (YOU) officer. Resilience is a six-month program that includes two weekly group meetings with an evidence-based journaling curriculum, weekly mentee/mentor one-on-one meetings, and stipends are paid for attendance/participation.