1. How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth?
By: Emily Ramos

2. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 1: Volunteers can directly impact the students emotional health and help improve their outlooks on life.
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
1) “ The volunteers helped build self- esteem through several different types of service activities, including mentoring, tutoring, coaching, teaching, or providing guided supervision for the children” ( Vernon, Andrea, and Foster 212). 
2) “...mentors can provide at-risk youth with both access to resources otherwise not available to them, and psychological and emotional support to foster behavioral and attitudinal changes” (de Anda 98). 
Overall volunteers are beneficial to at risk youths emotional well being and development when they do activities.
Mentors help students with their emotional well being and help them challenge previous attitudes they may how towards themselves and other people.

3. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 1: Volunteers can directly impact the students emotional health and help improve their outlooks on life.
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
3) “...by serving as a sounding board and providing a model of effective adult communication, mentors may help youth to better understand, express, and regulate their emotions” ( DuBois, David et al. 62) 4) “A happy person is likely to have low levels of fear, hostility, tension, anxiety, guilt and anger; high degrees of energy, vitality and activity; a high level of self-esteem and an emotionally stable personality; a strong social orientation; healthy, satisfying, warm love and social relationships; an active lifestyle with meaningful work; and to be relatively optimistic, worry-free, present- oriented and well-directed” (Michalos 351).
Mentors may help mentees better regulate their communication skills and emotions
If someone is happy this may help further boost their self esteem and outlook on life.

4. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 2: Volunteers mainly have a positive effect on their communities and the youths they serve according to the nonprofits and mentees they serve.
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
1) “Many schools engage parents and community partners by offering workshop sessions on reading, by organizing reading volunteers, and by helping parents strengthen students' reading skills and encourage reading for pleasure at home” (Epstein, Joyce et al 15)
2) “general community perceptions of the service provided by students were typically very supportive and positive. All of the agencies in the study pointed out positive benefits the community receives as a result of college students volunteering with youth” ( Vernon, Andrea, and Foster 226)
Volunteers help engage parents and collaborate with the community to bring programs to students.
Communities believe that volunteers are beneficial to the community overall. They find volunteers useful and as a good component to the environment.

5. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 2: Volunteers mainly have a positive effect on their communities and the youths they serve
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
The students who work with mentors all mostly think of the volunteers in a positive manner. They may even feel as if the mentors helped them lessen bad behaviors they may have previously had.
“ All but one of the mentees related positive changes they had experienced as a result of the program. Some indicated changes in prior negative or violent behavior” (De Ande 103)

6. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 3: Mentors are role models and help reduce at risk behaviors
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
1) “…reported positive results in the areas of decreasing alcohol and drug use, improving peer relationships, and improving parent/child relationships” (Thompson, Kelly-Vance 230) 
2) “ littles (mentees) who met with their "bigs" (mentors) regularly for about a year were 46% less likely than the control group to start using illegal drugs, 27% less likely to start drinking, 52% less likely to skip a day of school, and 37% less likely to skip a class” (Keating,Lisa et al 719).
3)  “Significant changes in values, goals, and perspectives were hinted at by a number of the mentees, who found that the relationship helped them change their attitudes and behavior in a more pro-social and achievement-oriented direction” (De Anda 105)
Many benefits such as reduced use of substances and better relationships followed once students got mentors
Statistically many bad behaviors decreased when students met with a mentor for over a year
Students with mentors sometimes found changes in their beliefs. They sometimes said they were even more social and determined because of their mentor.

7. Interpretations/comments
Research question: How do partnerships between nonprofits and volunteers effect at-risk youth? Subclaim 4: At risk youth want an adult that they can talk to and trust
Quotations
Interpretations/comments
1) “Most developed a valued relationship with their mentor that offered them someone with whom they could communicate” (De Anda 105) 2) “...mentoring may be especially well- positioned to serve as a “corrective” experience that helps the young person to establish a more adaptive and realistic perspective toward relationships with adults in caretaking roles” (Dubois,David et al. 63) 3) “...the best impact on the kids is seeing that there are adults who can run and order their lives without drugs and alcohol, and in a manner that is ethical” (Vernon, Andrea, and Foster 222)
Many mentees found their mentors as someone they could form a relationship with and talk to.
Mentors can help mentees understand that there are adults that want to listen to them. This can help mentees change previous attitudes towards adults and authority figures.
Mentors are a role model and show that there are adults who can function properly without any substance.

8. What’s next?
I believe the rest of my research should be focused on what organizations do to obtain a relationship with mentors. I also believe I should find more specific examples of nonprofits and volunteers working together. This could include things such as activities they implement.
Negative effects volunteers may have on their mentees?
What specific volunteer organizations are out there to support at risk youth?
What is the process of becoming a volunteer?

9. Works cited
De Anda, Diane. "A Qualitative Evaluation of a Mentor Program for At-risk Youth: The Participants' Perspective." Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, pp , doi: /A:
DuBois, David L, Nelson Portillo, Jean E Rhodes, Naida Silverthorn, and Jeffrey C Valentine. "How Effective Are Mentoring Programs for Youth? A Systematic Assessment of the Evidence." Psychological Science in the Public Interest, vol. 12, no. 2, pp , doi: /
Epstein, L. Joyce and Salinas, Karen Clark. “Partnering with Families and Communities.” Education Leadership, vol. 61, no. 8, pp , doi:
Keating, Lisa M., Tomishima, Michelle A., Foster, Sharon, and Alessandri, Michael. "The Effects of a Mentoring Program on At-Risk Youth." Adolescence, vol. 37, no. 148, pp ,
Michalos, Alex C. “Education, Happiness and Wellbeing.” Social Indicators Research, vol. 87, no. 3, 2008, pp , doi: /s
Thompson, Lynn A, and Lisa Kelly-Vance. "The Impact of Mentoring on Academic Achievement of At-risk Youth." Children and Youth Services Review,vol. 23, no. 3, pp , doi: /S (01)
Vernon, Andrea, and Lenoar Foster. "Nonprofit Agency Perspectives of Higher Education Service Learning and Volunteerism." Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing,vol. 10, no. 2, pp , /J054v10n02_12