MEMPHIS, TN – Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons announced that the D.A.’s Office had been awarded a grant from the Plough Foundation to help fund the D.A.’s truancy-based mentoring program. The majority of the grant from the Plough Foundation in the amount of $61,314 will be used to help recruit adult volunteers from the community to mentor truant Memphis middle school students.
The D.A.’s Office has formed a partnership with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which will hire a Mentor Recruitment Coordinator for the truancy-based mentoring program. The coordinator position will be funded for one year by the grant money awarded by the Plough Foundation. The grant will also help fund administrative and office supplies for the program.
The SCLC, under the leadership of Rev. Dwight Montgomery, has hired Chiquita Epps as the Mentor Recruitment Coordinator. Ms. Epps is currently employed as a detention officer at the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County. She has more than 15 years of experience in working with juveniles as a detention officer, substitute teacher, counselor and mentor. Epps attended the University of Tennessee at Martin and is expected to graduate from Crichton College this May.
“Our truancy-based mentoring program works. But we have struggled in recruiting adult volunteers to meet the demands of students in need of mentors,” admitted District Attorney Gibbons. “Frankly, recruiting mentors is a full-time job, and we are grateful to the Plough
Foundation for funding this position and to the SCLC in helping us reach our goal of recruiting enough quality mentors for our program,” Gibbons added.
“One of the most critical factors in a young person’s life is to connect with a mentor other than a parent in a constructive way. We know it can have a powerful impact on social, academic, and behavioral outcomes,” said Dr. Kriner Cash, superintendent of Memphis City Schools.
The D.A.’s truancy-based mentoring program is currently underway at Chickasaw, Cypress, Hamilton, Hickory Ridge, Humes, Sherwood, Vance, and Westside Middle Schools. The program pairs students who have accumulated five unexcused absences with adult mentors in lieu of prosecution for truancy. The mentorships are ordered by Juvenile Court and must last for a minimum of one year. According to an independent evaluation of the truancy-based mentoring program conducted by the University of Memphis Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, there is a clear reduction in truancy rates specifically linked to the mentoring program.
The truancy-based mentoring program is one of the strategies in the Operation: Safe Community action plan to help make Memphis and Shelby County safer. The goal is to ultimately implement the mentoring program in all Memphis City Schools middle schools. Harold Collins, Special Assistant to the District Attorney, is the coordinator of the program.