BRISTOL — As the penultimate bell rang on a recent Tuesday at Mount Abraham Union High School, a group of students met to discuss plans for their visit to Bristol Elementary School that afternoon.

The students gathered that day are mentors for the DREAM Program’s Guided Mentoring offering, a two-tiered mentoring approach that connectshigh schoolers with elementary-age mentees in their community.Through the program, older students receive training and support that helps them serve as impactful mentors.

Each week, high school mentors from Mount Abe head to Bristol Elementary to lead afterschool activities with students enrolled in the Mount Abraham Unified School District’s Expanded Learning Program. Student mentors said the program has allowed them to connect with community members they otherwise wouldn’t know.

“I never would’ve thought I’d be friends with a fifth-grader this year, and now I’m hanging out with him once every week,” said Benji Havey, an 11th-grader at Mount Abe involved in the program.

DREAM — which stands for Directing through Recreation, Education, Adventure and Mentoring — is an organization that aims to close the opportunity gap with mentoring programs and activities for youth across the Northeast.

The organization runs a few offerings in Addison County, including a Village Mentoring program, through which area youth are matched with a mentor from Middlebury College. The DREAM Program is currently raising funds for its holiday drive, which will support that local program.

DREAM’s Guided Mentoring program enables high school students to both be mentored and serve as mentors. Students commit to the program for two years, during which high schoolers receive guidance to support their mentoring of younger students.

“I think what it helps create is those community connections for the younger elementary school youth,” said Bruce Perlow, DREAM’s Guided Mentoring Program Director for northern Vermont. “That connection to their community beyond just what their regular connections would be is one of the biggest benefits that I’ve seen here in this program.”

Perlow meets weekly with high school mentors at Mount Abe during their Flexible Instruction Time, or FIT Block, at the end of the school day. On a recent afternoon, students split into two groups and were asked to come up with activities for Bristol Elementary students to take part in that day. While they handled the task on their own, Perlow was available to answer questions and offer suggestions.

“As they think of those activities that they do, it’s just about, ‘How can they build connection, how can they learn about one another, even if it’s something as simple as who likes cats and who likes dogs,’” Perlow explained.

The two Bristol schools are among several learning communities involved in DREAM’s Guided Mentoring program. The organization runs a similar offering at Middlebury Union High School, where a group of senior peer leaders works with ninth-graders.

In Bristol, 30 students take part in the program — 15 high school mentors and 15 elementary mentees.

“We go for that one-to-one ratio, where we have one high school youth to one elementary school youth,” Perlow said.

COLLABORATIVE EFFORT

To offer the program, DREAM works with MAUSD Mentor Program Director Anna Howell and the team at MAUSD’s Expanded Learning Program, or ELP.

“The mentoring program is unique in that each mentee is paired with a high school mentor and stays in that partnership for at least two full school years,” explained ELP Co-Director John Amory. “This is different than our other enrichment offerings that are offered through the year but most often last for a seven-week workshop session. This longitudinal model that Bruce and Anna started with us last year is starting to build in the way it was designed and we’re excited to see it continue to cycle as mentees and mentors continue to grow.”

Amory noted Bristol ELP Site Coordinators Meg Greenleaf and Amy Chesley play a key role in the partnership, working to “pitch the program to families and students to recruit new mentees, find classroom spaces for the program to meet for activities, gather supplies for projects, and support as needed with behavioral support.”

“For me as a co-coordinator of Bristol ELP, the DREAM program has evolved from ‘a great sounding activity that happens on Tuesdays’ to a more robust relationship between our programs,” Greenleaf said. “In ELP, student voice is what we strive to empower, to listen to, to honor. I’ve come to see DREAM as more than just an activity. It invites all students, on both sides of the relationship, to engage more fully, to find and use their voice, and to impact the outcomes.”

She noted the program offers a chance for elementary students to build relationships with local high schoolers in consistent and meaningful ways.

“Outside school, our students sometimes see their mentors performing in musicals, out on the field or on a court, or moving through our community with friends. I believe that means something to our students; it’s more intimate than seeing a teacher or administrator out in the community,” she said. “These mentors seem to feel accessible to our students, like they aren’t quite peers, but definitely not authority figures either. DREAM is helping to build these connections in supported ways.”

THROUGH THE DREAM Program’s Guided Mentoring offering, student mentors at Mount Abraham Union High School visit with mentees at Bristol Elementary School for after-school activities once a week.
Independent photo/Marin Howell

STUDENT CONNECTIONS

Building such relationships was part of what motivated Havey to get involved in the program.

“I feel like I never had somebody like that in elementary school, and it feels like it would be nice to give back,” Havey said.

Each week, Havey and other mentors take part in a variety of activities with Bristol Elementary students, some one-on-one and others offered in a group setting. Those can include playing outside at games that help participants get to know one another better.

“A primary aspect of our activities a lot of times revolves around arts and crafts,” said high school mentor Charlie Prouty, a senior at Mount Abe. “We do a lot of different things and last year we had the opportunity to work with (Bristol Collaborative Campus) … they kind of had art projects for us ready to go, so we’d go on a walk and get to know everyone more every day, and then we’d do our activities.”

Prouty noted incoming mentors are trained on the main pillars of DREAM’s developmental framework, such as expressing care and exploring identity, which mentors look to incorporate into the activities they plan.

“Playing a lot of games and doing a lot of things I feel like I haven’t done since I was their age, it’s almost nostalgic getting to do all the activities and getting the same level of enjoyment as I did then, now,” he said.

Perlow explained the Guided Mentoring program aims for about 10-20 mentors and 10-20 mentees involved in each two-year cycle of the offering, though capacity varies by site. With that in mind, the Bristol program has capacity to grow a bit more, depending on the level of interest by high school mentors.

In the meantime, Greenleaf said program partners work together to ensure the offering is serving all those involved.

“Bruce and Anna show curiosity in how they can best show up as leaders in the guided mentoring, how we can all make the most of this, and ways in which we can best support one another,” she said. “We’ve moved into deeper discussions over time about what we can all do in order to support the relationships that these students are making with one another, how to make those relationships meaningful, and how to keep it fun and exciting for all involved.”