Mentoring Helps Through Transition and Loss: A Success Story from Anita Taylor
Mentoring is a core service for our clients at ICAN and one of the most important and impactful. It is one-on-one work done “on the ground level” and many times, it’s so much more than a job for our mentors. It’s a calling that can help positively shape our communities AND future generations.
For National Mentoring Month, staff and IPA providers are sharing stories of mentoring relationship that have moved them personally and made a lasting impact on the lives and children and their families. The following is a success story featuring Anita Taylor, a program assistant in our Youth ACT Program. She has been mentoring children ages 6-16 since 2023.
Uncovering Core Issues
So many times, the behavior that presents itself at home and at school is the result of something deeper that young people may not be ready or willing to talk about. They may think they’ll get in trouble, or maybe they’re embarrassed or uncertain. That’s where ICAN mentors do their best work – helping break through!
Anita met her client through our Rise and Shine program and eventually Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PSR) services, due to her not attending school regularly. The PSR services allowed Anita to really connect and find out she wasn’t just missing school because she didn’t want to go. She had been raised by her grandmother since she was a baby and her grandmother had fallen ill. She was staying home to take care of her and make sure she didn’t get hurt.
From the start, she was happy to have consistent support from Anita and her attendance began to improve immensely, but she was still missing school to continue to care for her grandmother.
Helping a Mentee Adopt a New Routine and Manage Loss
Eventually the grandmother needed more help than could be given at home and was placed in an assisted living facility. Before Anita’s support and guidance, this may have been too much for the young client to process and adjust to, but with the relationship and trust that had been built, a new routine of visiting her grandma AND attending school began. She was put at ease knowing that her grandmother was being taken care of. Sadly, she did not come home from the nursing home. Anita was there when her client’s uncle told her and her sister the news. She stayed and provided as much comfort as she could.
Continued Support. Moving Forward.
Once the client moved in and was settled with another family member and was attending school regularly, she no longer needed the Rise and Shine services. PSR continued and Anita provided support and a safe space for her to discuss her thoughts and feelings.
By the time the school year started, the client was working, going to school, and hanging out with friends. She will always miss her grandmother dearly, but with Anita’s help she was able to process everything, move through uncertainty and a bout of depression and have the tools to move forward. She is now able to enjoy being a teenager!
What mentoring meant to the family, from Anita’s perspective:
“I believe the mentoring experience meant a lot to the family. When I started, the sister was extremely standoffish (even kind of mean!) but by the time I closed the case, she was sending me pictures of her baby and saying hello through my client. This shows an increase in trust. Being able to open up to a new person trying to make positive moves for your family is a BIG step… it provided great foundations for personal growth for the whole family. Hopefully they will carry on that trust in future relationships with other mentors, workers, teachers, etc. that come into their lives.”
“Before she passed away, the grandmother expressed her gratitude to me for spending time with her granddaughter and being a good role model for her. That really meant the world to me.”
Anita and her team at our 310 Main Street office
About ICAN's Youth ACT Program
Youth Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) supports children with complex mental health needs and their families so that they may remain in their homes and communities, achieve success in their educational, vocational or employment endeavors and foster positive relationships among friends and family.
Within the ACT program, we have consistently demonstrated that positive outcomes can be achieved despite significant trauma, mental illness, and psychosocial stressors.