About BCYMP
BCYMP strives to increase resiliency of young people in our community and add protective factors by building and supporting consistent, encouraging relationships with trained, caring adults.
We envision a future in which all youth in Brookings County have developmental relationships with adults who express care, provide support, challenge growth, share power, and expand possibilities.
Our Core Values
Relationship
Strong positive relationships are critical across all parts of young people’s lives, but too many grow up without a strong support network of relationships. We do all we can to increase the number of developmental relationships our youth have.
Collaboration
BCYMP believes that the best community for youth is one in which all organizations work together to support their healthy development. We actively participate in the exchange of resources and ideas so that Brookings County can best support its youth.
Compassion
BCYMP is committed to building reciprocal relationships and creating environments in which youth, families and BCYMP volunteers are treated with dignity, heart, and respect.
Generational Impact
BCYMP believes that each mentoring relationship we build and support has the power to change lives--including those lives that Mentees will touch in the future.
About
Our Program
BCYMP is a mentoring program for all K-12 students in Brookings County. Any parenting adult may request a BCYMP Mentor by filling our online application form or talking with a school counselor or another adult who supports your child(ren). BCYMP focuses on increasing the resiliency and positive social skills of youth through evidence-based youth mentoring. BCYMP is a 501c3 incorporated in April of 2001.
BCYMP has 1:1 community-based youth mentoring and small group mentoring opportunities. We follow best practices in youth mentoring as established by MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, and everything we do is focused on building and sustaining healthy relationships.
BCYMP Mentors, staff and program volunteers are trauma-informed and also trained in Search Institute’s Developmental Relationships Framework (2017). Research shows that youth with strong relationships across contexts are more likely to have healthy attitudes and assets, and less likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors that ultimately result in long-term negative social and health outcomes. Mentoring changes lives.
In 2021, BCYMP received their Disability Mentoring Certification. To complete their certification, BCYMP staff completed over 20 hours of online coursework, contributed to weekly discussion posts, and attended live webinars and cohort convenings, while also creating a plan to improve the disability inclusion practices in their organization. BCYMP was one of just 23 organizations in the nation that completed their full certification.
Why Mentor?
Mentoring showed me that it is important to consistently be there for someone, and it helped me develop more meaningful relationships outside of BCYMP.
I mentor because it is an awesome way to encourage a child in the community and to be a friend to someone who might be going through a hard time.
I think that BCYMP Mentoring is empowering. Kids need a network. It can’t always be one person.
Mentor Spotlight: Kaitlyn Venner and Brittany Haberman
Mentoring makes a difference not only in the lives of mentees, but in the mentors’ lives as well. People who know this well are two great BCYMP mentors, Kaitlyn Venner and Brittany Haberman. Both came to mentor with BCYMP through SDSU. Brittany became involved as a mentor after putting on […]
Mentor Month Spotlight: Board Member Dave Hopewell
There are many ways to support Brookings County Youth Mentoring Program, as Dave Hopewell, a BCYMP Board Member, will tell you. A few years ago, one of BCYMP’s co-founders, Orv Schmidt, told Dave to check out the program and after learning more at a fundraiser Dave was hooked. His work […]
Mentor Spotlight
MENTOR SPOTLIGHT: Rachel Paula Rachel Paula has been a mentor with BCYMP for the last three years. However, Rachel’s work with BCYMP began before she became a mentor, as a member of the BCYMP Board of Directors. When Rachel saw a need for more mentors and the positive influence mentors […]
Mentor Spotlight
MENTOR SPOTLIGHT: Ellyn Julius Ellyn has been a mentor with BCYMP since August 2017. Previously, she was involved in Big-Brothers Big-Sisters, a mentoring program similar to BCYMP. When she moved to Brookings she knew she wanted to continue mentoring and applied to BCYMP. Ellyn mentors because she knows she makes […]