It isn’t easy being a kid these days.
While it seems like the demands placed on youngsters continue to increase, the support system that many older people remember from our growing-up years is slowly eroding for today’s youth.
The number of single-parent families has risen steadily since the 1970s, with 23 percent of all children living in mother-only families and up to 5 percent living in father-only households in 2006, according to Child Trends Data Bank.
Even kids in so-called “normal” families with two parents in the household find themselves competing with all manner of other things vying for their parents’ attention.
As Meeker County District Court Judge Steve Drange told us recently, the days of “Leave it to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet” just don’t seem to exist anymore.
Hilary Clinton realized this a decade ago when she authored the book “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us,” a title she credited to an African proverb that “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Litchfield Area Mentorship Program wants to turn the idea behind that powerful statement into even more powerful action. The organization, which began during a Kiwanis Club brainstorming session about two years ago, wants to provide a structure through which young people who need it can find an additional adult support system.
Jim Ellingson, chairman and president of LAMP, said the nonprofit organization hopes to have a paid staff member on board sometime in 2008 — the sooner the better as far as board members are concerned. Once a director is hired, he or she will begin matching youths with adult mentors.
The key is funding. Ellingson appeared before the Meeker County Board recently to request funding. He also plans to make the LAMP presentation to Litchfield City Council and Litchfield School Board members in hopes they can provide support. In the meantime, LAMP has garnered some financial backing from the Litchfield Kiwanis Club and from Meeker Cooperative’s Round-Up grant program.
More financial help is needed. The organization expects a first-year budget of about $40,000, an amount that will pay the director’s salary as well as fund some programming.
The amount is a pittance compared to the good it could do.
Meeker County Court Services compiled information for LAMP about the need for mentors recently. It found that its four probation officers have a caseload that includes about 60 juveniles. Of those, it said, at least 20 would benefit from a mentor. According to the National Mentoring Poll, conducted in 2000 by the International Mentoring Association, 17.6 million young people need mentors nationwide.
Among the benefits to those youths who connect with a mentor, according to The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota, are: improved school attendance and performance, reduced truancy, improved health (reduced teen pregnancy, and reduced or delayed use of tobacco, alcohol or illicit drugs), and reduced juvenile crime.
Those social benefits would seem a good enough reason to invest in a mentoring program for Litchfield and Meeker County. But there also are financial reasons to consider.
Studies by Wilder Research and University of Minnesota both indicate an investment in mentoring has financial reward. Released in early 2007, the findings by economists Paul Anton of Wilder Research and Judy Temple of University of Minnesota showed that every dollar invested in mentoring programs shows a return of $2.72. The return is based on a reduction in costs of youth treatment programs and on projected increases in lifetime earnings of kids helped through mentorships.
The evidence seems so strong, we’re left with only one question — one that some LAMP board members admit to having asked themselves — what took so long?
We hope others agree and do what they can to help — financially or otherwise — get Litchfield Area Mentorship Program off the ground.