Mentoring PUBLICATIONS & RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO NATIVE YOUTH
The Kinship Mentoring Framework Group Session Facilitator’s Guide reflects the lessons learned during the Seventh Generation National Tribal Mentoring Program, a project that used culturally specific mentoring to guide court-involved American Indian and Alaska Native youth (ages 10-17) toward healthy lifestyle
The UNITY Peer Guides and Healing Indigenous Lives Initiative is dedicated to spreading awareness of available resources to Native youth to help increase community safety, protective factors and reduce youth risky behaviors contributing to juvenile delinquency.
The Kinship Mentoring Framework Group Session Facilitator’s Guide reflects the lessons learned during the Seventh Generation National Tribal Mentoring Program, a project that used culturally specific mentoring to guide court-involved and at-risk American Indian and Alaska youth (ages 10–17) toward healthy lifestyle choices. Youth who participated in this program were given the opportunity to choose a mentor from their families or communities. These mentors were trained to incorporate tribal history, culture, and values into a relationship that nurtured a strong sense of cultural identity and pride to help youth make positive life choices. Cultural heritage, however, involves more than a relationship between an adult and a young person—it also involves relationships among individuals within a community as well as a relationship between individuals and their community’s history and culture.
Thus, in addition to their one-on-one mentoring relationships, mentors and youth met once a month for a group session that included tribal elders and was also open to members of the youth’s family. This Framework’s guide was developed to assist facilitators in creating 12 group mentoring sessions (called “moons”) appropriate to a specific tribe and its culture. It is a companion piece to the Seventh Generation National Tribal Mentoring Program Mentor Handbook, which provides guidance on the Seventh Generation approach to one-on-one mentoring.