Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA)
This program was part of a cost-benefit analysis completed by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy on several violence prevention and reduction programs, including six Blueprints programs: Watching the Bottom Line: Cost-Effective Interventions for Reducing Crime in Washington.
Program Summary
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) has been providing adult support and friendship to youth for nearly a century. A report in 1991 demonstrates that through BBBSA’s network of nearly 500 agencies across the country, more than 70,000 youth and adults were supervised in one-to-one relationships.
Program Targets:
BBBSA typically targets youth (aged 6 to 18) from single parent homes.
Program Content:
Service delivery is by volunteers who interact regularly with a youth in a one-to-one relationship. Agencies use a case management approach, following through on each case from initial inquiry through closure. The case manager screens applicants, makes and supervises the matches, and closes the matches when eligibility requirements are no longer met or either party decides they can no longer participate fully in the relationship.
BBBSA distinguishes itself from other mentoring programs via rigorous published standards and required procedures:
- Orientation is required for all volunteers.
- Volunteer Screening includes a written application, a background check, an extensive interview, and a home assessment; it is designed to screen out those who may inflict psychological or physical harm, lack the capacity to form a caring bond with the child, or are unlikely to honor their time commitments.
- Youth Assessment involves a written application, interviews with the child and the parent, and a home assessment; it is designed to help the caseworker learn about the child in order to make the best possible match, and also to secure parental permission.
- Matches are carefully considered and based upon the needs of the youth, abilities of volunteers, preferences of the parent, and the capacity of program staff.
- Supervision is accomplished via an initial contact with the parent, youth, and volunteer within two weeks of the match; monthly telephone contact with the volunteer, parent and/or youth during the first year; and quarterly contact with all parties during the duration of the match.
Program Outcomes:
An evaluation of the BBBSA program has been conducted to assess children who participated in BBBSA compared to their non-participating peers. After an eighteen month period, BBBSA youth:
- were 46% less likely than control youth to initiate drug use during the study period.
- were 27% less likely to initiate alcohol use than control youth.
- were almost one-third less likely than control youth to hit someone.
- were better than control youth in academic behavior, attitudes, and performance.
- were more likely to have higher quality relationships with their parents or guardians than control youth.
- were more likely to have higher quality relationships with their peers at the end of the study period than did control youth.
Program Costs:
The national average cost of making and supporting a match relationship is $1,000 per year.
The information for this fact sheet was excerpted from:
McGill, D.E., Mihalic, S.F., & Grotpeter, J.K. (1998). Big Brothers Big Sisters of America: Blueprints for Violence Prevention, Book Two. Blueprints for Violence Prevention Series (D.S. Elliott, Series Editor). Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado.
1998 (Updated 08/2006)
Program Background
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Big Sisters activity was initiated in 1902, when a group of women in New York City began befriending girls who came before the New York Children's Court. Known then as the Ladies of Charity, the group later became Catholic Big Sisters of New York. A story in the New York Times in 1902 reported that a judge of the New York Children's Court secured promises from a group of influential men that each one would befriend one boy who had been before his court. His activity could have influenced a member of his court, Clerk Ernest K. Coulter, who is credited with founding the organized Big Brothers Movement in 1904. A Cincinnati businessman, Irvin F. Westheimer, and a member of a closely knit, charity-minded Jewish community, urged his friends and business associates to befriend troubled and disadvantaged youths, which eventually led to the organization of a Big Brothers agency in Cincinnati in 1910. Before World War I, the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Movement was characterized by many forms of organization, under a variety of sponsors, utilizing a number of approaches. But all of the efforts were united by a single spirit—a desire to help children, generally from one-parent homes, whose moral, mental, and physical development was endangered by their environments and backgrounds. By 1922, "standards" (i.e., basic requirements) were created and adopted. These early standards addressed the one-to-one relationship as a volunteer's individual and personal effort in behalf of children, and asserted the need for an agency to manage its affairs in a professional manner. By the early 1930s, the standards had become more stringent in setting forth minimum requirements for operation at the local level.
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In the mid-1930s, the Great Depression affected the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Federation, and by 1937 the national office closed its doors, while local agencies continued to operate. Following World War II, a new federation was established only for Big Brothers agencies. Out of a conviction that women could help meet the needs of girls, Big Sisters International was created by the Big Sisters agencies then operating in 1970. In 1977, Big Sisters International and Big Brothers of America merged to become Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA).
Efforts focused on the development and piloting of a set of Standards and Required Procedures for One-To-One Service (Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, 1986; as amended, 1996), which were adopted in 1986. This consists of corporate management and program management standards, with each standard having a set of required procedures that were deemed necessary to fulfill each standard. Compliance with these standards and required procedures became the hallmark of an effective Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) agency and the basis for building a consistent one-to-one service of over 500 BBBS agencies across all 50 states. A description of manuals published by BBBSA can be found in Appendix B.
During more than 85 years of national organizational development and localized service delivery, the word "mentoring" was not a part of the movement's nomenclature. In fact, it was not until the late 1980s, when funders and researchers determined that mentoring may be a promising approach for children at-risk, that the word mentoring found its way into the BBBSA's rhetoric for describing their service. There was a strong inclination on the part of local BBBS agencies, however, to not confuse BBBSA's systematic and structured volunteer approach with the more loosely fashioned mentoring programs that were being developed. Mentoring has various definitions, depending on the emphasis that a particular community youth program has as its goal. "Mentoring" is often used interchangeably with "tutoring," and sometimes, with the goal of apprenticeship. Mentoring tends to be an add-on to programs that have very specific goals and objectives, with mentoring being seen as only one of many ingredients. Historically, mentoring has had a helping-to-learn aspect to it; for example, an older person guiding a younger person, usually around some prescribed activity or aspect of life. Big Brothers Big Sisters work, however, focuses on friendship as the primary aspect of the relationship, which should lead to a feeling of trust over time, and which then may lead to some aspects of learning, regardless of the subject or behavior. But the relationship—the trust, the mutually shared experiences of everyday life—is the essense of the service. While the word mentoring is now used, for the most part, interchangeably with Big Brothers Big Sisters, BBBSA's emphasis continues to be on the quality of the relationship between the volunteer and the child, and not on a set of prescribed activities.
Theoretical Rationale/Conceptual Framework
Although BBBSA was not developed with academic theories of delinquency in mind, the project's rationale most closely resembles social control theory. According to this perspective, attachments to prosocial others, commitment to socially appropriate goals, and involvement in conventional activities restrain youth from engaging in delinquent activities or other problem behaviors, because more socially bonded youth have more to lose by misbehavior.
The rationale that has guided BBBSA service for nearly a century has been that the consistent presence of a non-familial caring adult can make a difference in the social/emotional development of a child or young person, particularly one growing up in a single parent family or in an adverse situation. Over the years the development of the BBBS service has been based on the overriding belief that a consistent and frequent volunteer contact is a powerful influence. This belief has been based, predominantly, on anecdotal reports from parents, teachers, case managers, and children themselves.
The most relevant research to date has come from the resiliency studies carried out by researchers such as Emmy Werner, and others, under the rubric of "caring adults." Werner, in a 30 year longitudinal study on the island of Kauai, has found that the number of caring adults outside the family with whom the child liked to associate was a significant protective factor for both high risk boys and girls who made a successful transition into adulthood. Based on such research, BBBSA continues its generalized approach and concentrates on enhancing the infrastructure to support the development and maintenance of the relationship between the volunteer and child.
Brief Description of Intervention
BBBS is a community mentoring program which matches an adult volunteer, known as a Big Brother or Big Sister, to a child, known as a Little Brother or Little Sister, with the expectation that a caring and supportive relationship will develop. Hence, the match between volunteer and child is the most important component of the intervention. Equally important, however, is the support of that match by the ongoing supervision and monitoring of the match relationship by a professional staff member. The professional staff member selects, matches, monitors, and closes the relationship with the volunteer and child, and communicates with the volunteer, parent/guardian, and the child throughout the matched relationship.
In practice, the volunteer intervention in the traditional one-to-one relationship with a child is three to five hours per week, on a weekly basis, over the course of a year or longer. The generalized activity of that relationship is related to the goals that were set initially when the match was established. These goals are identified from the extensive case manager interview held with the parent/guardian and with the child. The foremost goal usually set is to develop a relationship—one that is mutually satisfying, where both parties come together freely on a regular basis. More specific goals might relate to school attendance, academic performance, relationships with other children and siblings, general hygiene, learning new skills or developing a hobby. The goals established for a specific match are developed into an individualized case plan, which is updated by the case manager as progress is made and circumstances change over time.
Generally speaking, BBBS agency staff do not tell a volunteer specifically what activities to engage in with the child during their time together, but they guide the volunteer and make suggestions of possible activities and approaches, based on the child's and volunteer's interests and needs. Consistency in the relationship over time is a higher priority than the types of activities in which they participate.
Once the match has been initially agreed upon, in the presence of the child, volunteer, and the child's parent/guardian, it is then the responsibility of the professional staff member, known as the case manager, to maintain on-going contact with all parties in the match relationship.
The Standards and Required Procedures for One-To-One Service outlines the schedule of contacts the case manager is to have with the volunteer, as well as with the parent and/or child. There is to be more frequent contact during the early stages of the match with an initial contact within two weeks of making the match, then monthly contact throughout the rest of the year, and then contact every three months after the first year and throughout the duration of the match. The case manager calls the volunteer and the parent after the first and second week of the relationship to determine how the relationship is developing, and may continue on a weekly basis through the first six weeks, depending on the situation. However, it eventually develops into a monthly contact with the volunteer and the parent.
At least quarterly, the case manager is in touch with the child to learn of the youth's experiences. These supervisory contacts inform the case manager how the relationship is developing and provide an opportunity to give advice and guidance around any issues the volunteer might have, as well as to encourage and support various activities. For most agencies, the on-going case manager supervision with the volunteer takes place over the phone. The case manager is to assess the match goals on an annual basis and make appropriate adjustments to the case plan.
The Standards and Required Procedures for One-To-One Service also describes the professional practice the case manager is to follow throughout the intervention process with the volunteer, parent, and child, including maintaining confidentiality and case records.
Evidence of Program Effectiveness
In contrast to prior research on mentoring programs which has failed to demonstrate the effectiveness of those programs, research conducted by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) on the BBBS model provides clear evidence that a caring relationship between an adult volunteer and a young person can provide a wide range of tangible benefits.
P/PV conducted a comparative study of nearly 1,000 ten- to sixteen-year olds from eight BBBS agencies during the years 1992-1993. Half of these young people were randomly assigned to a treatment group, for which BBBS matches were made; the other half were randomly assigned to a control group and were not matched (the control group members were put on a waiting list for 18 months). The P/PV study compared these two groups after an 18 month period of time.
At the conclusion of the 18-month study period, it was found that Little Brothers and Little Sisters (youth participants in the program) were less likely to have started using drugs or alcohol, were less likely to have hit someone, felt more competent about doing schoolwork, attended school more, got better grades, and had better relationships with their parents and peers than those who did not participate in the program.
The information for this fact sheet was excerpted from:
McGill, D.E., Mihalic, S.F., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1998). Blueprints for Violence Prevention, Book Two: Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.
Video Segment
Contact BBBSA
BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF AMERICA (BBBSA) |
| For general program information, contact: |
| Joseph Radalet Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) 230 North 13th Street Philadelphia, PA 19107 Phone: (215) 567-7000 Fax: (215) 567-0394 Website: www.bbbs.org |
