Mentoring and Peer Support
A mentor can offer 1:1 support, coaching and guidance to another person by helping them to learn new skills, by sharing what he/she has learned and and by being a good role model. Mentors can help with things like social skills, work skills, community acceptance and working towards goals.
Peer support is getting help from someone who has had common experiences, situations, problems or disability. Peers can help with social and emotional support, daily living and advocacy, for example. It is not meant to replace professional counseling or other services.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts
Provides children who lack positive adult role models with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one relationships with caring, responsible adults that change their lives for the better, forever. Community-based mentoring relationships involve one-on-one outings and activities, doing things the Big and Little enjoy together.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay
184 High Street 3rd Floor
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 617-542-9090
Email: info@bbbsmb.org
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA)
Chapters in Massachusetts offer peer support groups.
Find a Massachusetts Group
Online Support Groups
AmeriCorps Mentoring Advocates
Mentoring Advocates serve at partner organizations strengthening mentor recruitment, matching and training; establishing community partnerships; coordinating marketing campaigns; and improving program design.
Child & Family Services Therapeutic Mentoring
Therapeutic Mentoring offers structured, one-to-one, strength-based support services between a Therapeutic Mentor and a youth (up to the age of 21) to support a specific goal on the child’s behavioral treatment plan such as developing social skills, interpersonal skills, problem solving strategies, or daily living skills. Offices on Cape Cod, in Fall River, New Bedford, Plymouth, Florence, Lawrence, Waltham, and Worcester.
CHD Therapeutic Mentoring
This special program represents an integrated, holistic way of offering therapeutic mentoring for children in Western MA, including Hampshire and Franklin counties.
Family Continuity Therapeutic Mentoring
A therapeutic mentor works one-on-one with a child or youth who, because of their behavioral-health needs, requires support and coaching to learn social skills, including better ways to communicate and get along with others.
Family Services of Merrimac Valley
Offers four mentoring programs:
- Big Friends Little Friends – A youth mentoring program that matches caring adult mentors with young people who could benefit from a relationship with a positive adult role model. The goal of the program is to develop the positive potential of young people by providing them with support, guidance and friendship. Big Friends Little Friends serves 15 towns in the Merrimack Valley.
- Stand & Deliver – Program recognizes the intelligence, talent and abilities of Lawrence Public School students and is determined to give them the support they need to reach their full academic potential. By providing one-on-one academic mentoring in partnership with some of the area’s most prestigious businesses, Stand & Deliver fills the gaps in knowledge, skills and support that students need to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam required for high school graduation in the state of Massachusetts.
Stand & Deliver currently partners with New Balance, Raytheon, Pfizer, Schneider Electric and Charles River Labs. New corporate partners are always welcome. - Success Mentors – Family Services has replicated the evidence-based “Success Mentors” model to provide mentoring to chronically absent students in the Lawrence Public Schools. and connects them with a school-based mentor. This model, developed as part of the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, is being funded by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
- Amigos Mentoring – Through a collaboration with the Guilmette Middle School, the Arlington Middle School, and the RISE Academy in Lawrence, Family Services is providing young people with positive adult role models with the goal of helping young people avoid risk behaviors and involvement with the juvenile justice system. Amigos is funded by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Fuller Hospital Therapeutic Mentoring
Therapeutic Mentoring offers structured, one-to-one, strength-based support services between a therapeutic mentor and child for the purpose of addressing social, communication and daily living needs.
Gandara Center Therapeutic Mentoring
A therapeutic mentor works one-on-one with a child or youth who, because of their behavioral-health needs, requires support and coaching to learn social skills, including better ways to communicate and get along with others.
Massachusetts Association for Mental Health
Offers advocacy, tutoring and mentoring programs.
130 Bowdoin Street Suite 309
Boston, MA 02108
Phone: 617-742-7452
Massachusetts Mentor Therapeutic Mentoring
Through our Therapeutic Skill Development Services (also referred to as Therapeutic Mentoring), we help kids develop the skills they need to reach their full potential.
Mass Mentoring Partnership
Listing of mentoring programs in Massachusetts serving children and youths 5-18 years old.
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Offers peer support resources, peer mentors and groups
The Schrafft’s Center
529 Main Street Suite 1M17
Boston, MA 02129
Phone: 617-580-8541
Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services Northeast Behavioral Health
FLEX offers one-on one service for youth with significant behavioral, emotional and mental health needs.
Therapeutic Mentoring Program for Youth
- Individual Youth Support: Mentoring by a paraprofessional
Lahey Health Behavioral Services
Northeast Behavioral Health
199 Rosewood Drive, Suite 250
Danvers, MA
Phone: 978-968-1700
Partners for Youth with Disabilities (PYD) Mentoring Program
Goal is to help young people with disabilities meet their full potential for personal development and independence by matching them with a caring adult mentor.
95 Berkeley Street, Suite 109
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-556-4075
TTY: 617-314-2989
Email: info@pyd.org
Riverside Community Care Therapeutic Mentoring
Therapeutic Mentoring is designed to give children and teens the opportunity for skill building through experiences that would naturally occur in their everyday life, at their home, foster home, childcare center, or other setting.
The Home for Little Wanderers Therapeutic Mentoring
Therapeutic Mentors are used in a variety of programs at The Home and are a valuable resource for many children.
Trinity Care Associates Therapeutic Mentoring
Trinity Care Therapeutic Mentoring offers structured, one-on-one, strengths-based support services between a Therapeutic Mentor and a youth to address daily living, social, emotional, and communication needs.
Therapeutic Mentoring Service Providers
Tufts Health Plan has a list of agencies who provide therapeutic mentoring services for children or teens under the age of 21 throughout Massachusetts
Seven Hills Foundation Therapeutic Tracking
Therapeutic Trackers (also referred to as Therapeutic Mentors) support youth who are experiencing emotional/behavioral issues in their home, school, or community.
Mass.gov Therapeutic Mentoring Services (.doc.)
Therapeutic Mentoring guidelines, components of service, staffing, treatment planning and more.
Fact Sheet last updated on: 5/15/2023
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