Foster Care Mentor

Overview

The Route 21 Mission: Find young adults who grew up in foster care to be paid and supported to mentor youth currently in care.

The Route 21 Vision: Lived experience experts mentoring the next generation of youth impacted by foster care through intentional connection and community building.

Did you spend time in foster care? Are you ready to give back and help youth who are currently in foster care in King County, WA? Do you want to learn more and teach youth critical life skills such as sound mental health, finance, finding and keeping a job, healthy relationships, and creating safe living spaces? Being a Route 21 mentor may be the right position for you to put your life experience to work helping youth in care.

Route 21 mentors are matched with an incoming high school freshman who is currently in foster care for one-to-one mentoring and group activities. Mentor and youth have breakfast each week during the school year. Twice a month all youth and mentors go on fun group outings like paintball, ice skating and pottery. Once a quarter all youth and mentors attend a Life Skills workshop.

Annually, all youth and mentors go away for a weekend for some fun and bonding but also for some real conversations. Route 21 mentors also receive a “Pit Crew” support team. Pit Crews provide relational support on life matters such as finances, housing and being a good mentor. Throughout the year mentors learn and teach their mentees about our core curriculum called W.H.E.E.L.S.:
Wealth, Health, Education, Emotions, Life Skills and Spiritual.

Becoming a Route 21 mentor is a two year commitment. We hope you feel a great sense of pride in your job and want to commit to all four or five years of your youths high school career but at least two years is required.

• Attend every weekly meal/breakfast meeting during the school year and two weekend outings each month with your youth.
• Report the grades and progress of your youth each week.
• Attend 1 dinner/meal with your Pit Crew.
• Attend the 9 monthly staff meetings throughout the school year.
• Adhere to the requirements or rules laid out in the mentor training each year.

The Route 21 mentoring model is called near-peer mentoring. Near-peer means mentors and youth resemble each other in significant ways. Because of this model we have specific requirements for our mentors.

• Route 21 mentors need to have spent some time in foster care while growing up. No specific amount of time in foster care is required.
• Route 21 mentors need to have stable housing.
• Route 21 mentors need to have stable income other than what we will pay you.
• Route 21 mentors need a reliable car.
• Positive references regarding character and work ethic.

The Route 21 mentoring model is unique. There is nothing like us in the country. One of the many things that makes us stand out is that we care about our mentors just as much as we care about our youth. A lot of time and energy goes into supporting our mentors to help them succeed in their career, life and at being a great mentor.

• A perfect opportunity to give back, help those in the same situation you grew up in and get paid to do it.
• Route 21 mentors start out at $25/hr and can make $30/hr after three months if they reach simple performance goals.
• Each Route 21 mentor receives a Pit Crew that they meet with on a regular basis to help them reach their goals, do well in school or work and be a great mentor.
• $500/year stipend per youth for car repair.
• Gas stipends to pay for driving to and from meeting with their youth.
• Matching retirement up to 3% of the employee’s salary.
• Two weeks paid vacation at the end of June.
• Paid to play. Twice each month Route 21 does group outings; go karts, ice skating, movies, museums... etc.
• Life skills training; finance, relationships, mental health, job interviews... etc.

This job is for those who have a:

• Hunger to learn and grow. If you are thinking you just want to get paid to go on go karts and watch movies this is not the job for you. We are very demanding of our mentors and will not let you settle for second best or mediocre effort. Route 21 strives for excellence and will expect that from you.
• Passion to help youth currently in foster care.
• Desire to equalize high school graduation and homeless rates across our country for youth in care.
• We will provide training to help understand trauma and how it affects the development process.

Monthly work hours: 16-20 hours per month.

• Weekly breakfasts/meals - 1 hour per week.
• Monthly group outings on a Saturday. 4 - 5 hours.
• 1 meeting with Pit Crew each month. 2 hrs.
• Monthly meeting with your cohort director. 1 hour.