Moving From a Good Program to a Great One
Our Response to the Challenge to Develop
Solid Recommendations to Achieve Long-term Results

Anticipating the final results of the School-Based Mentoring (SBM) Study (insert link to P/PV) , Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) has been working to enhance the School –Based Mentoring program. 

Since June 2006, BBBS has been taking the preliminary findings of the Study seriously, engaging in a nationwide strategy to understand its promising findings, as well as implementing its recommendations to strengthen the BBBS School-Based Mentoring model and practices.  

• We formed a School-Based Mentoring Task Force, made up of representatives from local BBBS agencies.  The Task Force met weekly or bi-weekly in phone conferences from September 2006 through May 2007, and examined the nature of the positive academic outcomes of The Study and how the outcomes resulted.  The Task Force also developed detailed recommendations to bring about long-term impacts in the SBM program.
  
• In November 2006, we held 15 regional conference calls to get recommendations for the SBM program from over 225 individual BBBS agencies.
  
• In March 2007, our Nationwide Leadership Council, which serves as a conduit between our agency affiliates and our national office, ratified plans for SBM improvement and called on all agencies to set goals to increase SBM Average Match Length and to make other SBM improvements.
  
• In May 2007, we developed an SBM Tool Kit and held 16 Mini-Symposiums across the country attended by 164 agencies in order to assist agencies in planning and strengthening the 2007-08 SBM program.
  
• We have integrated the SBM Improvement Plan into our BBBS Strategic Plan, which outlines the direction of the organization for the next three years.  
  
• We developed a draft of two new tools that will allow us to better analyze our “matches”—a  “Big” and a “Little” in a mentoring relationship.  The new impact measure and new measure of the strength of match relationships will allow us to more precisely measure the outcomes of our SBM and Community-Based Mentoring (CBM) matches on an on-going basis.  These measures will be tested in 2007 and 2008.
  
• We are creating a best practices model for program areas such as high school Bigs, summer activities, “School-Based Plus” (allowing off site activities), volunteer orientation and match support.  We are also testing the impact of using the combined package of these recommended practices.
  
• Over the next several years we will track improvements in SBM, such as increases in average match length, strength of relationship, and outcomes.