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Members of Congress Support MPM’s Appropriation Request

8/3/2010 12:50:13 AM

Minnesota’s Congressional leaders are true champions of quality youth mentoring, making it a priority in their 2011 appropriations requests.

In the latest development on July 15, House appropriators, including Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) (also co-chair of the Congressional Mentoring Caucus), met to report the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Bill out of subcommittee. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN) included $200,000 in the bill to support MPM’s 2011 earmark request that supports three initiatives:

• Allow MPM to increase staff to support its Quality Mentoring Assessment Path (QMAP) process and provide additional training and technical assistance to programs doing their program self-assessment
• Create a new source of funding designated to mentoring programs who complete their QMAP, develop improvement plans, and work toward quality standards
• Create version 2.0 of MPM’s K-12 Journey Map to include more resources supporting K-12 milestones in preparation for 1-, 2- or 4-year college

“We are proud that our policy leaders in Minnesota understand the importance of measuring the quality of youth mentoring programs and the adoption of best practices as it relates to positive outcomes for youth and their volunteer mentors,” says MPM’s Executive Director, Joellen Gonder-Spacek. “We want to see a Domino effect: sustainable quality programming and support that leads to stronger matches, stronger matches that lead to long-lasting relationships and guidance that produce better outcomes for youth,” says Gonder-Spacek.

In addition to the House members, Senators Franken (D-MN) and Klobuchar (D-MN) also showed their support of MPM’s request in the first round of priorities for earmarks in April.