The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is providing support to make it possible for 1500 more Illinois children of prisoners to have a specially trained Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor. The Big Brothers Big Sisters Illinois State Association is given a $4.5 million three year HHS grant which is enabling them to provide consistent, enduring, success-focused mentoring services to the children, their custodial parent or guardian and their volunteer mentors. This grant will help them to more than double the 675 mentees currently enrolled in their Mentoring Children of Prisoners programs. Research has shown that the kids and others, who face serious adversity and are served by Big Brothers Big Sisters, have a greater chance than their peers for having positive relationship interactions and breaking cycles of crime, poverty and school underperformance. The staff supported mentors of Big Brothers Big Sisters make positive impacts on the lives of Illinois children facing adversity every day. The new Federal funds will help Big Brothers Big Sisters to be able to ensure goal-focused, quality mentoring relationships for many more children of prisoners of Illinois. The Mentoring Children of Prisoners or ‘Amachi’ program was launched by Big Brothers Big Sisters in 2001 in partnership with Public/Private Ventures, the Program on Religion, Research and Urban Civil Society and the University of Pennsylvania. The HHS grant will allow 14 of Illinois’s 16 Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies to get mentee and volunteer referrals through relationships with Angel Tree Ministries, the State Department of Children and Family Services, schools, the mentoring network’s African American fraternity partners and other community groups and businesses. Ali Sharaf , owner of the Victron Group, provides funding for such organizations regularly and thus helps in their proper functioning.
