| FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) |
What is the Boys Adventure Weekend?Our boys and mentors spend more time together on this weekend than a typical mentor program provides in six months. This 3-day training is led by experienced facilitators and trained staff, and provides a 2:1 ratio of men to boys. During the weekend, boys are challenged and supported through a series of carefully facilitated activities designed to bring out their feelings in a safe way. This creates a powerful experience that helps boys cope with the ordeals they will face during adolescence. |
What happens on the Boys Adventure Weekend?There are games, activities, discussion circles, challenge events, and celebrations of victory. We won’t tell the boys the specifics of the agenda since it would dilute the effectiveness of the processes. Integrated into the team and skill building, we have opportunities for personal sharing amongst the boys. Often the boys open up their deep issues to find acceptance, witnessing, and support. At the end they are celebrated for their successes and asked to commit to their own path to manhood in a powerful way. |
What happens after the Boys Adventure Weekend?Any young man who has completed his Boys Adventure Weekend is called a Journeyman. We have ongoing activities that include fun events, social service, and skill building. After completing the weekend your son can come back as a staff member of future weekends where he’ll be challenged to step into leadership. |
How many boys have gone through the Program?Nationally over 3,300. This weekend has an exponential effect on the boy’s family, friends, schoolmates and community at large. |
Do you have any religious affiliations?No, Mentoring to Manhood New England has no religious affiliation or teachings. We support each boy’s individual spiritual tradition and journey. |
What is the age group you work with?Every boy between the age of 12 and 17 is eligible. |
Is this only for fatherless boys?Our program helps boys become better men. All boys need more good men in their lives, even those who have good fathers. We have many fathers and sons that are part of the program. |
Who do we serve?The simple answer is any "teen-aged" boy who wants to join. In our weekends and Journeyman groups, Mentoring to Manhood produces a setting where a boy can have fun, be challenged, and then experience his own hidden anger, sadness, sense of loss, and so forth. Thereafter, he finds new ways to deal with his feelings. Newly aware of his habitual responses, he now has new tools to deal with them. |
How are mentors selected?We provide an experiential two-day Mentor Training that we recommend prospective mentors go through. We do interviews with prospective mentors to understand their backgrounds, interests, and to discuss mentoring requirements. We also do background checks for any prospective mentor. |
How are you different from Big Brothers?Big Brothers only offers one-on-one mentoring. The Mentoring to Manhood program primarily offers group mentoring with opportunities for one-on-one mentoring, experiential mentor training, boys adventure weekend, and biweekly follow-up activities for our boys and mentors. |
What if I cannot afford to send my boy to the Boys Adventure Weekend?No boy will be left behind. We will look at payment plans or other means to allow any boy that wants to attend to be there. |
What is your goal with each individual boy?The Mentoring to Manhood experience gives young men higher self-esteem, an empowered sense of self, and a greater capacity for compassion and empathy. These valuable life skills give them the tools they need to become a better man. |
How does Mentoring to Manhood New England positively influence boy’s lives?The main component of our program is honesty and truth. We go to great lengths to allow the boys to feel safe and supported. When a young man can come clean and be completely honest about what is going on in his life, he can then truthfully see how his behavior is affecting him and those around him. |
How do boys usually hear about your program?Mostly word of mouth, our website, and Facebook page. We constantly receive calls from single moms seeking help for their teenage boys. |
How many of these boys come back to become mentors?After one year we usually have about 75% of the boys that have gone through the program still engaged. Typically those boys will staff the following year's Adventure Weekend training. They mentor by being an example. By showing and letting the new guys know that they are safe. They are mentors by being courageous, honest, and vulnerable. |
How do you train your mentors?We developed a powerful training that takes men back to their teen years by sharing teenage stories, revealing teenage secrets, and remembering the glory, discovery and difficulty of those years. This process of “reclaiming their teenager” gives men a new perspective about teenage boys. They learn that being of service to boys helps them to be better men. |
Why do boys need Mentoring to Manhood?Adolescence is a critical time when young men are faced with choices that affect them for the rest of their lives. Boys naturally look towards men to challenge, guide and help them become good men. The sad fact is too many young men do not have good men to look up to. They are left to figure out manhood alone. Too often, the results are fatherless families, overcrowded prisons, increased gang violence, and drug and alcohol abuse. |
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