Don’t Go Alone
Empowering At-Risk and Aging Out Youth Through Hope and Belonging
Every year, approximately 21,000 young men and women age out of foster care in our country.
Outcomes for young adults who age out of foster care are grim, with a high percentage experiencing increasing poverty, early pregnancy, incarceration, forced prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse and joblessness.
36%
of young adults who age out of foster care experience homelessness.
87%
of boys aging out will spend some time in jail, mostly for survival crimes.
71%
of girls who age out of foster care will find themselves pregnant in the first year.
Imagine being 18 – 24 and:
Getting ready for that first big job interview and having no one to talk you through your nerves and insecurity.
Mismanaging your money and having no one to help you see a way out of the hole.
Experiencing a crisis like sickness, job loss, personal failure or tragedy and having no one to walk with you through it.
Don’t Go Alone
Become a Mentoring Adult or Family for a young adult who’s aged out of foster care.
The Don't Go Alone program is dedicated to connecting young adults to families.
Relationships, even lifelong ones don’t depend on titles, they depend on connection, consistency, and care. We invite you to “step into the story” of an amazing young adult by becoming a Mentoring Adult or Mentoring Family.
What’s Required of a Mentoring Adult/Family?
The Ability to Connect – Our program is based on creating lifelong, stable adult connections for young adults who don’t have consistent or healthy family relationships at their disposal as they navigate the path to fully independent adulthood. The success of those relationships is largely determined by our Mentoring Families or Mentoring Adults and their ability to connect, care, and be consistent.
Flexibility & Availability – The Don’t Go Alone program is relationship driven. For a relationship to develop, time and attention are a must, so our Mentoring Adults need plenty of flexibility and availability to give their young adult. Remember when you were in your early 20s? Everything was a “crisis” and we often called on our own families and meaningfully connected adults to walk with us through them. Our young adults are no different than we were at their age.
A Desire for Connection – There is both responsibility and accountability that accompany a successful connection. It’s important that our Mentoring Families accept the responsibility of being relationally invested in the new connection so that it can grow (i.e. completing Don’t Go Alone paperwork, returning phone calls, meeting regularly and communicating regularly) and the accountability of relationship (i.e. being able to handle conflict, discuss goals and plans, and have difficult conversations when necessary without breaking relationship, walk through things you might disagree with without “judging” or walking away).
The Commitment for Connection – Our number one goal is to make a great match between a young adult and their Mentoring Adult, and for that connection to last a lifetime.
We all want to make a difference in someone else’s life. Connecting with a young adult who has no one is a profound and lifelong way to make that happen.
Are you ready to step into their story?
How to Get Started
STEP ONE
Join with the Project Belong Network.
Your church aligns with the Network of Churches across Virginia to step into this important work of caring for vulnerable children. Learn more about the process here.
Project Belong then acts as your church's bridge to Agencies and other organizations, who make this opportunity available to the young adults they are in contact with. If the young adult expresses interest, we gather basic info to understand their preferences.
STEP TWO
Be matched with a young adult.
Complete an interest form to let us know that you would like to step into the story of a young adult’s life. From there, you’ll complete an online orientation that takes less than an hour, plus a one-day training course. Our team will email you the link after we’ve received your interest form.
The goal is to be matched with a young adult with similar lifestyle, location, and interests. When we think we have a young adult that you would make a great connection with, our team will send you their profile for review.
STEP THREE
Commit to the connection.
Our number one goal is to make a great match between a young adult and their Mentoring Family, and for that connection to last a lifetime. Whether your role in their life looks more like a mentor than a mom, or more like a dad or devoted uncle, it doesn’t matter how it’s defined, it only matters that it lasts.
**All Mentoring Families are required to read and sign our Values & Statement of Faith, complete all paperwork on their family history and allow for a background check.
Complete the
mentor interest form.
Our vision is for every unconnected young adult to find a safe, stable and connected adult to walk with them through life. Everyone deserves someone. Could that someone be you?
Refer a youth today.
Do you know someone 18-24 who needs a healthy support system? Complete our online referral form today so we can get them connected.