Our vision is to redefine youth mentoring to expand the power of relationships in a child’s life.
Our mission is to create a replicable model that professionalizes traditional mentoring by using clinically-focused mentors to work intensively with youth and their families throughout middle school. Through the science of relationship-based learning, we foster a profound sense of mattering that expands opportunities in the lives of children.
Our Sole Focus is on Middle School
Research on neurological changes in adolescent brains underscores the importance of middle school as a critical time period. This period makes youth especially vulnerable to stress but also highly receptive to services and interventions. With the right support and relationships, this decisive period can actually represent a peak time to optimize brain development. We concentrate on the “science” around the relationship.
Our Program is Guided by the Personal Experience of Our Co-Founder…
… who journeyed from the streets of The Bronx and into Harvard University. We’ve taken Co-founder Liz Murray’s first-hand knowledge, bolstered it with expert clinical research and crafted a program exclusively for middle school students. Here, they’re capable of not only determining the direction of their own lives but also understanding that they matter as part of a wider, global picture.
Our Mentors Are Clinicians-in-Training
We want these young people in professional hands. Our mentors are not volunteers, they’re accomplished Master of Social Work clinicians-in-training from local universities who receive hands-on training and support over the course of each year from The Arthur Project.
We Spend 500 Hours With Each Student, Each Year
Traditional mentoring programs can offer mentees about 40 hours a year. At The Arthur Project, our kids will benefit from approximately 500 hours with their mentors over a year, including a relationship on weekends and summers.
Each Student Follows An Individualized Growth Plan
Statistics inform our work at The Arthur Project, but we’re careful to see one individual at a time. That’s why our mentors create tailored growth plans for each mentee, because while data suggests similarities, these kids’ stories are anything but the same. We’ll inspire and measure their growth as individuals using plans that encompass academic and social-emotional needs alongside critical life skills and service learning.
Whole Families Are Supported
We recognize that true impact can only be made when a child’s family is also supported. Just as our students set and achieve goals along our dimensions, so do their parents and guardians. Our Family Advocate works closely with families to support them as they move toward their whole family goals while also acting as a liaison between the school and family.
