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Valley mentoring programs are based on evidence-based models.

Never forget to give back to the community-- Mary Lou Salazar

By Erin Smith, member of the San Luis Valley Prevention Coalition

ALAMOSA - Mary Lou Salazar lost her mother at age 15 and wishes she could have had a mentor.

After Mary Lou and her husband, Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo., had three sons, she joined in a mentoring program in Conejos County where she lives.

“Never forget to give back to your community,” Mrs. Salazar advised mentors and mentees this week during a celebration of National Mentoring Month.Gloria Rodriguez -Vigil is 15 and a freshman at Centennial R-1 High School in San Luis. The youngest of seven children, she lost her mother several years ago. Rita Montoya, mother of four, saw her youngest off to college this past year.

“What do I do now?” Ms. Montoya, who teaches science and math at Centennial, asked herself. The answer to Ms. Montoya’s empty-nest feelings was solved by the Mi Animo Prevention Program through San Luis Valley Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center here in Alamosa. Ms. Montoya, an eighth grade sponsor last year, became a mentor; Gloria, recruited by prevention team member Priscilla Ortega who lives in the same small Costilla County community she does, became a mentee. (Rita and Gloria are pictured here)

Rita Montoya with mentee Gloria Rodriguez-VigilEvery school day, the mentor and mentee “hang out for lunch,” Gloria, who exudes an almost fragile toughness so often equated with personal loss, says. They also go bowling and to movies, spending from six to eight hours a month together. Softy, looking across the dinner table at Ms. Montoya, the girl adds, “She’s my friend.”

“I like to keep my grades and academics up. Having a mentor keeps me out of trouble. She’s there to give me something to bounce off,” Gloria says. The young woman has dreams of becoming a car designer and hopes to go to an automotive school in Denver. She also admits to enjoying history and government classes and has a fondness for basketball.

Mentor Peter DeLaCerda of Alamosa whose own mentor was famed Olympic track coach Joe I. Vigil who was many years at Adams State College, participated in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Australia. A teacher and coach himself, DeLaCerda and his wife Ronda (c.q.) mentor 11-year-old Monet Atencio, who lost her mother when she was 6. Monet was recruited into the program about 18 months ago by her uncle Rick Esquibel, Mi Animo’s prevention supervisor. The fondness the girl has for her mentors is obvious. (They are pictured below with his wife Ronda and mentte Monet)

If one did not know otherwise, one would think she was just another member of the DeLaCerda family. The DeLaCerdas include Monet in many family activities with their three children, ages 7, 5 and 7 months. They even took her back to California with them when they visited family.

DeLaCerda, a speaker at the mentoring dinner this past week honoring all program participants, said, “Dream big, work hard and anything can happen. You must have goal setting and you must have priorities in life.”

See report by Erin Smith on Challenge for Success.

ALAMOSA _ Mentoring programs in the San Luis Valley are based upon evidence-based models.

“We assume if we do the model, our results will turn out like those of the model,” says Clarissa Woodworth, director of grant management and youth programs at San Luis Valley Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center.The truth is valley programs can’t afford the expensive follow-up studies.

“We wish we could. We just don’t have the money,” Ms. Woodworth says. Mentoring programs use the Big Brother, Big Sister model, a program that has done studies on mentoring and its results.

“They have done studies that result in a specific outcome. So if we run it like that, we expect that outcome,” she said.“We don’t have extensive data. Our programs require attendance, grade maintenance and so forth. We know that they are working,” she added.

“We do a pre-test and at the end of a year in the program, we ask the youth how they have changed. We just don’t follow up a year without service like some programs do,” Ms. Woodworth said.

The mental health center’s mentoring project is called Mi Animo Prevention. It is a community-based prevention program that works with the community including parents and youth. It works with evidence-based prevention strategies to improve and change community conditions and problem behaviors and to build youths’ sense of personal responsibility for themselves and their communities.

Studies have shown, Ms. Woodworth says, that after 18 months in a mentoring program, students are 46 percent less likely to begin using illegal drugs, 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol, 52 percent less likely to skip school and 37 percent less likely to skip class. They also are more confident of their performance in school work, get along better with their families and minority children are 70 percent less likely than their peers to initiate drug use. Mi Animo mentors meet weekly with their mentees, interacting with them at least six hours a month; attend quarterly, annual or mentor-training activities; and listen, guide and be a friend to the young person. Mentees can be of any age, through high school. For information, www.slvprevention.org, or call, (719) 589-3671.
 
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