Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lake County provides children & youth with professionally supervised, One-to-One® mentoring relationships, with caring volunteers. We accomplish this through our four mentoring approaches:
Student-to-Student Mentoring: College and High School Students are matched with children from a nearby elementary school. Student-to Student Mentoring is not a classroom program, and it's not tutoring. Student-to-Student Mentoring is one-to-one mentoring that takes place in the schools. Of course, some students do talk with their mentors about class, or do homework, or read together, but it's really all about friendship and guidance. The Bigs and Littles play or jump rope or shoot hoops or go on monthly outings.
Lunchtime Mentoring: Adults from corporate offices like CDW, Meridian, Abbott, Baxter, etc. spend one lunch time per week with their Little. The Big meets with their Little at the Little’s school during their lunch hour. They eat lunch together, play games, or just hang out and talk.
Site-Based Mentoring: Adults are matched with a child who meet at a particular site or “home base”. This is a supervised mentoring program where the Bigs meet with Littles as a group and then break out into one-to-one sessions. They do arts & crafts, play board games, participate in gym activities, talk, and go on monthly outings. Click the PDF below for more information about this program:
Community-Based Mentoring: Community-based Mentoring is the traditional Big Brothers Big Sisters relationship. It’s all about one-on-one time spent with the volunteer and the young person doing things they enjoy — one hour a week filled with shared interests and activities like: shooting hoops, playing a board game, sharing a pizza, taking a walk in the park, going to a ballgame, or just hanging out and talking. Click the PDF below for more information about this program:
Big Brothers Bigs Sisters of Lake County serves over 800 children annually through our mentoring programs. We partner with school districts, colleges, townships/villages/cities, churches, corporations, and other nonprofits to make sure that every child who wants or needs a mentor has access to one.
The Big Brothers Big Sisters Match
According to research, these one-to-one matches are such a powerful force for influencing children’s behavior because of Big Brothers Big Sisters’ signature approach to mentoring.
A Big Brothers Big Sisters’ match is carefully administered and supported by rigorous standards and trained personnel. Professional agency staff strives for matches that are not only safe and well suited to each child’s needs, but also harmonious and built to last. That is why so much care is taken in screening and orienting volunteers, and then in matching them with children.Our Impact on Children
Bigs and Littles have fun together — and create memories that last a lifetime. We call it “Little moments … Big magic.” Research on our volunteer programs points to the powerful, positive, lasting impact Bigs have on children’s lives. Researchers found that after 18 months of spending time with their Bigs, the Little Brothers and Little Sisters were:
46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs
27% less likely to begin using alcohol
52% less likely to skip school
37% less likely to skip a class
more confident of their performance in schoolwork
one-third less likely to hit someone
more likely to get along with their families and peers
