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On July 27, 2004, BEST Kids, Inc. entered into the first ever formal agreement with the District of Columbia ’s Child & Family Services Agency (CFSA) to provide volunteer mentors to the District’s foster care youth. Our goal is to ensure every foster care youth has a consistent, caring and competent adult in their lives for the long run.

Mentoring Works

Outside independent research completed on the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program demonstrates that one-on-one mentoring works:

  • 67% improve school attendance
  • 69% improve grades
  • 73% stay out trouble with the law
  • 91% increase self-esteem

Even more dramatic results are coming out of a program much more closely aligned with the model utilized by the BEST KidsTM Mentoring Program, started in Portland , Oregon called Friends of the Children (FOC). FOC children are identified by their fourth grade teachers as most likely to fail. The first class of FOC are now 10th graders, and these are the results:

  • 98% of all program children are in school
  • 97% have passing grades
  • 98% have never been incarcerated
  • 97% do not use drugs or alcohol on a regular basis

FOC also starts early and stays with the child until they are 18 years old. The BEST Kids program adds the peer group component and extensive volunteer help of mental health professionals to FOC model. BEST Kids™ mentoring also focuses exclusively on Foster Care Children, already screened as the most at-risk.

See Foster Care Crisis – A Quiet Crisis for research on the bleak outcomes predicted for these children.