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Allentown, PA, August 24, 2020– Pinebrook Family Answers and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Lehigh Valley (BBBSLV) are continuing their collaboration to provide community-based mentoring services for children dealing with mental health challenges in the Lehigh Valley. Their goal is to serve 90 additional children by the end of September 2021. Known as “Compeer of the Lehigh Valley,” Pinebrook represents an extension of an already thriving program that pairs adult volunteers with adults facing mental health challenges in mentoring friendships. Pinebrook has administered the Compeer program for adults successfully since 1973 in Lehigh and Northampton Counties.
Compeer, an international mentoring organization, helps adults overcome the challenges associated with mental illness through the power of friendship. Through Compeer’s model, a community volunteer is matched with an adult with mental illness in the same community. Local non-profit agencies throughout the world are tasked with bringing the Compeer model to their respective communities. BBBSLV and Pinebrook are extending services to younger people in Lehigh County through this program, utilizing the already successful community-based mentoring model BBBSLV has employed for nearly 50 years.
BBBSLV employs a community-based mentoring program, where adult volunteers are matched with local children and build friendships by enjoying shared activities several times monthly. Through the Compeer program extension, Pinebrook and BBBSLV staff members work with community partners to recruit adult volunteer mentors, match volunteers with children in caring one-to-one relationships and support these mentoring relationships through their duration.
“Strategically, this is a new and exciting direction for our organization,” Pinebrook’s CEO Bill Vogler said. “What we get by working together is so much more than what we would do by trying to individually do this.”
“Big Brothers Big Sisters has long wanted to partner with Pinebrook on its Compeer Program,” Susan Bartels, CEO of BBBSLV. “Each year, our agency is serving a greater number of children facing mental health challenges with few role models to look up to. Combining Pinebrook’s and Big Brothers Big Sisters’ areas of expertise makes the Compeer program extension a big win for children and teens who need a stable adult in their lives.”
As a component of the partnership, BBBSLV will be launching a volunteer recruitment campaign in September 2020 called “The Future is BIG”. The goal of the campaign is to recruit 30 new mentors over 30 days throughout the month. This campaign will help provide mentors for children who are participating in the Compeer program.
The Compeer of the Lehigh Valley program extension was funded through a grant provided by the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Information provided to TVL by:
Alicia Garges
Press Release by Kimberly Hopkins
