Mentor A Young Adult that has Aged Out of Foster Care (West Valley-East Valley)

There is no bridge from a group home to independent living and young people that have aged out of foster care often enter adulthood without the emotional support or financial safety-net of family. As a mentor, you can help ensure these vulnerable young people are not left to navigate adulthood alone.

Your caring, patient guidance and friendship can ease the heavy burden of self-sufficiency for young adults that have often missed out on critical growth and development opportunities provided by a stable childhood. Mentors are a crucial component of Foster Your Future’s unique approach of pairing mentorship with financial assistance and incentives to ensure that mentees are stable and have some resources to put learning into action.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A MENTOR?

There is no perfect profile for a mentor - the young adults participating in Foster Your Future programming come to the organization with unique interests, strengths, challenges, and goals. Most mentees live in Tempe, Mesa or the West Valley. Current mentors tell us that they rely on:

• Patience
• Compassion
• Time (1 - 5 hours per month)
• Listening skills
• Diplomacy
• A desire to make a difference
• The belief that they have something to give

This opportunity is extremely flexible. We ask mentors to commit to a one-year mentorship, including a weekly check-in and monthly meet-up. Once you have been introduced to your mentee, you and the mentee will determine when, where and how you check-in and meet-up. Foster Your Future will provide reimbursement for one monthly in person meet-up with your mentee, as well as mileage reimbursement. We rely on mentors to help assess changing needs and goals of the young person, suggest ways that Foster Your Future can encourage and support their efforts, and provide regular communication back the Foster Your Future team on your mentee’s efforts and progress.

In the words of one young adult:

"When I was connected with Foster Your Future back in June 2022, I was homeless living in my car with no savings, maxed out credit cards, and just barely starting another job. Due to the generosity of the program and a wonderful mentor I was able to obtain housing goods, security deposit assistance, lots of food, and most importantly mental support to obtain my EMT certification and not give up like I did in the past. The support I received allowed me the opportunity to become essentially debt free, build a savings account, focus on healing from my childhood a bit more, and most importantly have the longest stable and safe housing in my life. I sincerely thank all of those that support Foster Your Future which gave a young guy like me opportunities to become successful when no one else believed in me (including myself)."