Program Summary
MentorWorks Program Redesign and Implementation
Resourced and Supported the Program Redesign for MentorWorks In-School Student Mentorship Program in Fairfax County, VA
- Funded a multi-year program design consultant to improve the quality of the MentorWorks program as part of the Intervention and Prevention Services within Fairfax County Public Schools
- Four-year grant running from 2021-2025
- Partnered with MentorWorks and Fairfax County Public Schools
- Objectives were to:
✓ Identify Best Practice in Mentoring Program Design and Implementation
✓ Conduct a Comprehensive Review of MentorWorks Program Structure and Operations
✓ Review and/or Revise the Existing MentorWorks Program Components to Maximize Impact
✓ Establish a Feasible and Informative System to Support Ongoing Assessment, Implementation Monitoring, Evaluation, and Program Improvement Over Time
✓ Plan and Execute Pilot Evaluation to Estimate the Impact of MentorWorks on Student and System-Level Outcomes - Project Phases
✓ Phase 1: Evaluation Start Up
✓ Phase 2: Baseline Program Review
✓ Phase 3: Review of Best Practices
✓ Phase 4: Measure Development
✓ Phase 5: Formative Process Evaluation
✓ Phase 6: Pre-Pilot Program Development
✓ Phase 7: Pilot Study
MentorWorks Belonging Project
- Overview: The Belonging Project is part of the FCPS MentorWorks program and is inclusive of select schools with established mentoring programs in Opportunity Neighborhoods.
- Goal: The goal of this pilot program is to enhance established MentorWorks programs with the long-term goal of reducing chronic absence. Program enhancements will foster growth for mentees and their families in three domains:
➢ Family, community, and school engagement
➢ Cultural awareness and understanding through activities and events targeting experiential learning
➢ College/Career exploration through targeted activities and events - Framework: The Belonging Enrichment Program will include a “continuation of care” component to ensure that mentees are supported as they age up to middle or high school. All activities and events will articulate vertically in a developmentally appropriate manner to ensure that mentees and their families will deepen their connections to their school, the world around them and the world of work as they age up.
- Will be a one-year pilot that will occur during School Year 2024-2025
MentorWorks Theory of Change
I am a new teacher so this was my first school-wide social event. I was amazed by the many hands that made this event so enjoyable. I was able to meet some students that I don’t teach, and some colleagues that I have only previously said hello to in the hallway. I had some wonderful conversations today and felt so lucky to be a part of the school family." - Fairfax County Public School teacher, October 2021
Measures of Performance
For more information, please see Data Analysis section at the bottom of the page
End of Program
Data Analysis
MentorWorks Program
MentorWorks Pilot Belonging Project
- Goal: Our original goal was to redesign the existing MentorWorks in-school tutoring program within Fairfax County Public Schools in order to scale the program to bring on more schools, mentors, and mentees. Concurrently, this strategy was also intended to develop and implement an evidence-based, academic and experientially-rooted model with a theory of change and a set of measurable data whereby we can determine the success of the program in terms of student impact. Ultimately, we were looking to develop a program that could truly be measured to determine what factors create improvements in student outcomes.
- Intent and Activity: This 4-year program consisted of funding a Penn State University faculty member to work with the MentorWorks program to build a logic and theory of change model; to identify the key data sets needed to best track student and mentor behaviors, performance, and growth; to build a database and collection system to acquire, monitor, and evaluate the program data; and to include robust experiential activity learning opportunities for the mentor/mentee matches. Over time, the MentorWorks Program Evaluation Project examined how MentorWorks makes a difference in the lives of mentees by identifying the measures that best capture program success and by assessing ways to expand and strengthen the program’s reach and impact.
- Sustainability: All of the data collected was designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new model and the data collection such that the program would continue to evolve and mature over time to best ensure student success.
- Program Lifecycle COVID Challenges:
- Because of COVID-19, this program was initially delayed in School Years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Thus, we lost almost two full years due to school closures and loss of in-person mentoring and FCPS then needed to essentially rebuild the mentoring program during the latter half of 2021-2022.
- By 2023, the MentorWorks/Penn State team completed the framework for the database and began acquiring mentor/mentee data in earnest. Baseline data from 2021 and 2022 was available in some cases; however, data fidelity was more limited in these previous years. Strong match data has been collected from School Year 2022-2023 forward.
- By School Year 2022-2023, we were able to start observing output and outcome measures within the program, with measurements occurring at the end of each school year.
- Output Measurements/Program Growth from June 2022-June 2025 (how much we were able to accomplish):
- In just three years, MentorWorks significantly expanded its reach across all areas of the program, increasing the number of mentors, mentees, mentoring groups, and participating schools.
- Community Mentors up 252% (155 → 504)
- 1:1 Adult Mentor Matches up 198% (1,123 → 3,349)
- Mentoring Groups up 900% (4 → 40)
- Participating Schools up 55% (115 → 178)
- Outcome Measurements/Measuring and Improving Match Quality from June 2023 to June 2025 (how well we executed the strategy):
- MentorWorks utilized a validated questionnaire to measure mentors’ and mentees’ perceptions of overall match quality across seven domains: Closeness, Empathy, Trust, Guidance, Intervention, Goals, and Collaboration.
- Improvement Goal: Increase the average Relationship Satisfaction Score by 3%.
- Results: The average Relationship Satisfaction Score IMPROVED by 8%, increasing from 3.38 to 3.65.
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Belonging Project: Our End of Year strategy not only closed out the original MentorWorks initiatives, but during SY 24-25 we added the Belonging Project performance measures as well, which have been evaluated over this past school year. The Belonging Project is part of the FCPS MentorWorks program and is inclusive of select schools and selected, targeted students with established mentoring programs in Opportunity Neighborhoods. Our involvement in SY 24-25 was to pilot this initiative and assess if additional, more intensive mentoring (including expanded experiential opportunities) could further reduce chronic absenteeism rates, improve social-emotional resiliency in these students, while also improving the mentor-mentee match quality of relationships. The Belonging Project includes a “continuation of care” component to ensure that mentees are supported as they age up to middle or high school. All activities and events articulate vertically in a developmentally appropriate manner to ensure that mentees and their families deepen their connections to their school, the world around them and the world of work as they age up.
- Combating Chronic Absenteeism through the Belonging Project:
- Belonging Project Mentee Participation: Number of 1:1 MATCHES increased by 82%.
- Attendance Outcomes: During school year 2024-25, 61% of belonging students who had an absence rate of 7% or higher at the end of the previous school year, IMPROVED, with an average attendance rate DECREASE of 6.25%.