Across Ages

An intergnerational mentoring approach to positive youth development.  The overall goal of the project is to increase the protective factors for high- risk students in order to prevent, reduce or delay the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and the attendant problems associated with such use.  For more visit acrossages.org. 

What We Do

Program Activities

  • Mentoring. Older adults (55+) are recruited from the community, trained and matched as mentors. Mentors spend a minimum of two hours per week in one-on-one contact with the youth.
  • Community Service. Youth spend 1-2 hours per week performing community service, which includes regular visits to frail elders in community nursing homes.
  • Social Competence Training. Across Ages utilizes the Social Problem-Solving Module of the Social Competence Promotion Program for Young Adolescents (Weissberg et. al, 1990). The 26 lessons are taught weekly for 45 minutes.
  • Family Activities. Monthly weekend events are held for youth, their family members and mentors and include activities that are culture-specific as well as recreational, social and sporting events.