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University of Hawai'i |
(808) 956-8856 Telephone |
For Immediate Release: |
October 5, 2000 |
Contact: Dr. Vincent Kelly Pollard, lecturer, Department of Political
Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 956-4240, pollard@hawaii.edu
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| UH faculty members, community leaders discuss mentoring challenges on 'Olelo Community Television |
'Olelo Community Television will air a program this month co-produced by the Hawai'i Research Center for Futures Studies, which is housed in the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI). The program is the result of collaboration with Manoa faculty members to discuss how to organize and evaluate mentoring programs for at-risk students in Hawai'i. The show is based on a Futures Discussion Group event co-sponsored by SSRI's Hawai'i Mentoring Inventory, which brought leaders of mentoring organizations together for a community meeting on the Manoa campus.
The two-hour show, "Hawai'i Youth at Risk? Futures of Mentoring," also refers to a report written by Vincent Pollard with Val Johnston and Lloyd Asato of the Hawai'i Mentoring Inventory. Public administration Professor Richard Pratt was the project's principal investigator.
The program includes a five-person panel discussion held during the community meeting. The panelists represent both traditional and non-traditional mentoring programs in the state: Jenn Marr, president of the Association of Women Bodyboarders; Don Hallstrom, area authority of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints of Jesus Christ; Ku'umeaaloha Gomes, director of Kua'ana Student Services at UH Manoa; Rhoda James, consultant at the Girl Scouts of Hawai'i; and Mike Casey, former director of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Hawai'i and now executive director of the Hawai'i Mentoring Initiative. These representatives discuss how their respective programs effectively mentor students within their communities. Whether these connections are made through churches, schools, clubs or any other type of organization, Pollard says the Hawai'i Mentoring Inventory defines mentoring as "a voluntary, structured and preventive relationship that a 10-to 18-year-old youth has with a caring adult outside her or his family."
The Hawai'i Mentoring Inventory was funded by the Hawai'i Department of Health Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division to create a database of state mentoring programs. The program was established in response to the growing number of Hawai'i's at-risk youths, or those students who are in danger of dropping out of high school. Pollard says the Department of Education Comprehensive School Alienation Program estimates the number of at-risk students almost doubled from 7,605 in the 1990-1991 school year to 13,815 in 1997-1998.
"Mentoring can make a big difference," Pollard says. "To summarize a library of social science and public health literature, the evidence strongly suggests that young people with strong connections with mature adults have a better chance of negotiating the pressures that lead their peers to drop out of school."
The project also found that the numbers of at-risk youths varied geographically throughout the state. During that seven-year period, Pollard says, the rate of increase in at-risk youths was greatest among students on Leeward O'ahu and the Big Island.
"Today's young people need more than a solid high school diploma to get a job," he says. "To drop out is to cross a dangerous threshold. Behind each of those shocking numbers is a young person whose present and future is very much at risk. Concerned people must regard those risks as preventable tragedies."
The program, which will be shown this week, is part of a series of television programs derived from Futures Discussion Group events sponsored by the Hawai'i Research Center for Future Studies in SSRI.
"This is the kind of research services that we like to provide for the community," SSRI Director Michael Hamnett says. "Some of this work will be used in a community resources assessment for the Department of Health."
Pollard says, "Manoa campus involvement in the Hawai'i Mentoring Inventory is one more example of how UH is directly involved in facilitating research of direct and immediate tangible benefit to community organizations and government agencies concerned with increasing student retention and graduation in the public schools."
The program will be shown three times this month on the 'Olelo Community Television Channel 54:
Oct. 6: 7:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m.
Oct. 10: 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Oct. 20: 8:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m.
