There are more than 30 million children living in low-income households in the United States, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.
Children living in poverty are two to three times more likely to develop a mental health disorder than other children, meaning 40 percent of American children are at high risk of developing a mental health disorder.
One way to improve the long-term mental health outlook for children is by providing dependable support and companionship.
One local nonprofit does just that, and is expanding beyond Clark County.
Great Life Mentoring uses trained community volunteers as mentors to bolster the mental health conditions of children from low-resource households. The program pairs highly trained volunteers with children who are referred to the program through organizations like the Clark County Department of Community Services. Once a mentor is matched with a child, they provide support and spend quality time with them for a year and usually longer.
The program was founded in 2000 as a partnership between the Clark County Department of Community Services, Columbia River Mental Health Services and other behavioral health care providers in Clark County. For the past two decades, Columbia River Mental Health acted as the umbrella organization for the program.
Now, thanks to abundant research demonstrating the program’s positive outcomes, multiple organizations and donors have provided funding to grow the program into a standalone nonprofit.
The organization became fully independent on Jan. 1, and now executive director and founder Elizabeth Higley is looking to replicate the organization’s model beyond Clark County.
Positive outcomes documented
For roughly 15 years, Great Life Mentoring has been documenting its outcomes to improve its model and to demonstrate its effectiveness.
“In the mental health realm, evidence of impact is essential,” Higley said. “I developed a research element within Great Life Mentoring from very early on, and that was to help sustain the organization, because there are great ideas everywhere, but only if you have evidence of impact are you able to sustain your model.”
Higley’s long-term goal was to replicate it as an evidence-based practice in communities throughout the country. Refining the quality of the program through research is a big part of achieving that, Higley said.
“We now are in that exciting time of moving toward a deeper level of research and replicating the model,” she said. “All of that is a part of why all the long-term parties involved have decided that Great Life Mentoring becoming its own nonprofit organization is what was going to be in the best interest of the model for this replication.”
In 2014, Great Life Mentoring partnered with the University of Washington and the University of Illinois Chicago to conduct preliminary studies on the effectiveness of its program. The universities became interested because Great Life’s volunteer retention rate was 98 percent. The national average volunteer retention rate for similar programs is 45 percent.
“They wanted to know: ‘What is it that Great Life Mentoring is doing that leads to twice the retention rate of any other mentoring program?’ ” Higley said.
Additionally, mentors with Great Life Mentoring stick with the children they are matched with for an average of four years, while the national average for similar programs is roughly 16 months, Higley said.
The preliminary studies showed that children who participated in Great Life Mentoring’s program have been found to use mental health services to a greater extent later in life compared to children who were not involved with the program.
The studies concluded that Great Life Mentoring’s model was an ideal candidate for replication on a wider scale, Higley said.
Grants and donors
Following the results of those studies, the Wood Next Fund — the philanthropy of tech innovator and Roku founder Anthony Wood and his wife, Susan — provided funding for a five-year randomized control trial that will be implemented on Great Life Mentoring by the University of Illinois Chicago starting this year.
Over the next five years, university researchers will investigate the impact of Great Life Mentoring on the mental health of youth from low-income families. That research will inform the organization as it begins to expand outside of Clark County.
“By the time that the research is done, we’ll implement the findings from that research before full dissemination of Great Life Mentoring on a larger scale,” Higley said.
The organization has already begun expanding outside of Clark County. It recently moved its offices from Columbia River Mental Health Services in Vancouver to downtown Portland.
The Firstenburg Foundation, the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington and Mentor Washington also provided grants to help the organization make the transition to become a standalone nonprofit.
“We also received more than 100 new donors that provided over $100,000 to make the change,” Higley said. “Having that kind of community support is so inspiring. This work is great for the kids, the mentors and everybody that’s involved. We get to see the best in people.”
Looking forward
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, mentors were unable to meet with kids in person, and they provided what support they could via phone calls and video conferencing. As the pandemic stretched on, more volunteers started joining the program than ever before.
“We actually had a surplus of people wanting to volunteer, and that’s very unusual,” Higley said. Now, there are 57 volunteer mentors with the organization.
“I’m happy to report that all the mentors who joined Great Life Mentoring during the pandemic have been sustained and followed through with their original one-year commitment,” Higley said.
Holy Redeemer Catholic Church provided funding for Great Life Mentoring to hold a celebratory event at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland in May. At the event, many mentors and kids with the program will be reconnecting in person for the first time since the pandemic began.
“Mentors and kids will get this day of freedom, free of stress,” Higley said.
Higley is also looking forward to reconnecting with mentors and kids at the event.
“I love what I do,” she said. “I don’t get to see the kids that much anymore, because I’ve been doing this administrative, behind-the-scenes work. When we throw an event, and I get to see the kids, it’s so exciting for me. It’s so great to spend quality time with them.”
