Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound

We partner with parents/guardians, volunteer mentors and others in the community to give youth the support they need to achieve:
• More educational success
• Better relationships
• Higher aspirations
• Greater confidence
• Positive behavior choices
• Fewer depressive symptoms

Why do we focus on these areas? Educational success is associated with higher graduation rates, college attendance, and less disruptive behavior. Social acceptance is linked to higher grades, higher graduation rates, and decreased risky behavior. Making positive behavior choices keeps kids out of trouble and reduces negative outcomes in adulthood. If a youth can be successful in these areas, they can be successful in life.

We match children and youth in 1-to-1 relationships with volunteer mentors. Matches spend time together doing things they both enjoy, like playing sports, participating in hobbies, or sharing food. In time, the mentor becomes a consistent presence in their mentee's life—the confidant and advocate all youth need to thrive.
Our mentoring is unique because it gives youth an outlet during evenings and weekends, when few other programs are available. The most important aspect is the relationship, and that isn't tied to a particular place or time. This means Big Brothers Big Sisters is able to complement interventions that occur during school or business hours, instead of competing with them.
All of our matches are professionally supported. Before a match even begins, potential mentors undergo background checks and in-depth interviews to gauge their suitability and commitment. Screened volunteers move on to training, where they learn about the risk and protective factors kids live with—and how they, as mentors, can help their mentees thrive. Finally our enrollment staff carefully matches each trained volunteer with one young person, and they become a match.
Of course, we don't simply match a mentor and youth, then send them off together. The professional support continues throughout the lifetime of the match. An assigned program coordinator has regularly scheduled check-ins with each mentor and youth, plus the youth's parent or guardian. This consistent contact helps us assess and strengthen matches, address concerns, engage families, and connect participants with further resources or training.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound serves 2,500+ children and mentors in King, Kitsap, and Pierce counties of Washington state. Our agency has been a leader in mentoring services for 60+ years. As an affiliate of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, we use nationally researched and validated tools to help us accomplish our mission and measure the outcomes of our work. Cultural competence is one of our core values, and our staff continually pursue professional development specific to race equity, poverty, trauma-informed care, and LGBTQ youth.
We are humbled by the trust of the youth, families, and mentors we serve, who share their very lives with us. To honor that trust, we lift up their concerns and push for progress through public-private partnerships and collective action work like Graduate Tacoma and Eastside Pathways. We envision a future where all kids can live up to their potential, and our communities and systems open doors instead of closing them.

The past 18 months have been difficult for kids, mentors, and families in our community. The COVID pandemic, school and work closures, and general uncertainty have taken a toll on everyone--and many have experienced illness or the death of loved ones. This is a time when relationships matter, to help cope and to keep hope alive.

In most years, youth in our mentoring programs widely report consistency or improvement in their mental health, self-esteem, relationships, and school performance. Mentoring wasn't able to counter all of the weight of 2020, but young people still reported some positive outcomes:
• 80% of youth mentored for at least 12 months maintained or improved their grades during the year.
• 75% reduced or saw no worsening of their depressive symptoms.
• 77% aspired to reach educational milestones like high school graduation.
• 83% maintained or improved their ability to regulate their emotions.