|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
As the new regional manager of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts, Rebecca Kerner knows that “mentoring works.” But she is also aware that there is a deficit of volunteers across America, dating back to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is an international organization with a 75-year track record in New England of assisting more than 25,000 youth by matching them with adult mentors. Kerner is now responsible for “activating” the communities of New Bedford, Fall River and Brockton. Her foremost goal is to increase the number of volunteers who will mentor local youth 7 to 12 years of age in a relationship of “bigs” and “littles.”
Kerner says there is a present need for male volunteers, including multi-lingual volunteers. Mentors are vigorously screened to accurately be matched with a youth, based on interests, personality, location and other areas. The mentor is in regular contact with the youth’s parent(s) as well as having access to a match support person who can assist them in their mentoring relationship. The South Coast region currently has more than 50 “littles” who are unmatched with a mentor.
Kerner, who stepped into her new role in June, has a background that makes her fitting for the situation. With a history of working directly with youth and families, she is focused on a “strategy” for achieving her recruiting ambitions.
After graduating from Wheaton College in Norton with a degree in anthropology, she went on to serve in the AmeriCorps in Rhode Island where she was introduced to various youth development nonprofits. She previously served as youth development coordinator and DEI trainer at Rhode Island for Community and Justice and most recently was in development at New Urban Arts in Providence, which offers creative, after-school learning opportunities for youth. These experiences with youth and her knowledge of the South Coast region played a major role in her hiring.
Kerner had a unique upbringing that informs her vision to this day. Her mother, Donna Kerner, a cultural anthropologist, adopted her and raised her in faculty housing on the campus of Wheaton College, a setting that exposed her to a wide spectrum of ideas and cultures from a young age, a perspective that is an advantage in her new role. But even more impactful were more than a half dozen trips to Tanzania in East Africa, where she accompanied her mother on summertime educational research trips in cultural anthropology. Beginning at the age of 4, Kerner’s overseas experiences enabled her to see the world through a lens that gave her an appreciation for the societies and lifestyles of people other than Americans. Her experiences have inspired her on the way to her new responsibilities with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Where she once saw herself acting globally, she now sees herself acting locally in her community.
Kerner spoke with The Light about her upbringing, the challenges facing her in her new role, her strategy for recruiting mentors, and what a positive future could look like for her and the organization.
New Bedford Light: What does Big Brothers Big Sisters do?
Rebecca Kerner: It’s a dynamic one-on-one mentoring program. We strategically match our mentees, but just because you sign up for the program on either side doesn’t mean you’ll be immediately matched.
We have a very strategic process … With our “bigs” we want to get what your interest is, what your hopes and dreams are, what your lifestyle is like. We want to know if there are any big lifestyle changes that are about to happen. We want to know about your relationships, what you’re doing in life, what your work history is, what you were like as a child. With our “littles” we want to know what your interests are, what your siblings are doing, what your family is doing. That’s really so we can find a very particular match. What your goals are, what your family’s goals are for you? So that way the dynamic match is to make sure that we can hopefully work towards these goals together.
NBL: What qualifications and attributes are necessary to become a mentor?
RK: Really, there’s no qualification necessary. You don’t have to have worked with kids. People think you have to have worked with kids, they have to have some background working with kids. I was just talking with someone the other day whose match has lasted about 30 years. Now that’s an unofficial match because we do technically close matches at 21 years old, but those relationships do continue.
And that “little” has their own “little,” but they also talk to their mentor. So it’s a really interesting cycle where you’ve got a “little” but you’ve got a “big.” You’ve got a match and it’s a really great time where people recognize the power of mentoring and they want to keep continuing that but also continue their mentoring relationship.
NBL: What goes into being a good mentor?
RK: Consistency. … We’re not asking you to be a savior, to come in and be someone’s savior. We’re asking for consistency, we’re asking for humanity, patience. We do a lot of training prior to meeting with your “little.” We get a lot of training on safety.
And you also have the support of a specific person who is your match support person. Once you’re matched and you’re ready to be matched you have that person as your resource and guide. So if you ever have any questions, like, “How do I relate to a 7- or 12-year-old? I’m 58 years old and I don’t know how to connect with them.” That person is there with resources, they’re there for you to connect with, to find different ways to connect with the youth, find different ways to connect to the community. They’re also there to connect with the parents and the “bigs” in case there’s any conversations that need to be had. So there’s a lot of resources for those “bigs” to find out what might be interesting to go out into the community and do.
NBL: Do you take people of all stripes and backgrounds?
RK: Absolutely. Anybody who’s 18 and older is allowed to sign up and book an interview. As I said, our interview process is pretty intensive, and you’ll go through a high screening process. It’s a long conversation of, “Is this really something that you’re ready to take on?” It’s a long conversation.
Anybody with any background, any level of experience. We’ve had people who’ve had kids, people who haven’t had kids and worked with kids, people who’ve never worked with kids. You don’t have to have any experience working with kids and that’s why we have our match support folks to help you feel comfortable as you move through this process. It’s open for anybody who wants to take that step and be a supportive mentor to someone in their community.
NBL: How are the parents and families involved?
RK: They are just as involved as the “bigs.” I’m pretty sure that they’re in constant conversations both with our match support person who’s assigned to that match. They have frequent conversations with the match support person. They’re also in conversation with that “big,” especially with outings, so if there’s ever an outing where they’re from the South Coast and they’re going to Boston to see a Red Sox game or they’re going to the Boston Aquarium, there’s clear conversation and permission being exchanged from the parents and the “bigs.” The parents are very involved. They’re involved through the interview process. They’re involved in the half-year check ins and monthly check ins.
NBL: How long does a match usually last and how do you put “bigs” and “littles” together?
RK: Folks commit for one year. That may be scary to some folks, but to break it down for folks, we’re asking for two to three outings a month or two or three hours, so it’s really like 40 hours in a whole year. Matches tend to last for about three years or longer. We don’t close a match until a “little” is about 21 years old. That’s an official closing of their match, however if that relationship is still going well we encourage them to stay in touch.
NBL: What are the virtues and rewards of being a mentor and how do the “littles” benefit long term?
RK: They’re both getting a lot out of it. Mentors, I think, it’s a little bit more surprising for folks. I think they think they’re signing up for something and they think it’s going to be more rewarding for the “little” but a lot of our “bigs” will say that they’ve been able to get in touch with their “inner little.” They’ve been able to see a lot more diverse backgrounds of folks that are living in their community. They’ve been able to connect with folks who are in their community. They’ve been able to explore things that are happening in their backyard that they might not have explored before joining this program.
Seventy-six % of our “littles” have said that their “bigs” have helped them learn right from wrong. Ninety % of our “littles” have stated that their relationship helped them make better choices in life. Seventy-six % of our “littles” reported that they’re doing better in school because of their “big.” We have clear goals that we’re trying to achieve with these relationships and mentors work. That’s what we’re basing our program on — mentoring works.
NBL: Can mentors go on to similar fields? What does it look like on a resume?
RK: You can definitely build on your resume. We have college programs — in the South Coast we have UMass Dartmouth. We partner with the New Bedford Housing Authority and they refer the kids who are in these different housing units and these kids get to go on to campus twice a month during the school year and they’re matched with students from UMass and they get to hang out with those kids and get to see college and hopefully maybe go to UMass Dartmouth some day.
So when we think about resume building, students who are at UMD have a resume building opportunity. It’s a leadership building opportunity. It’s definitely a great community building opportunity for folks who maybe are a little bit older and established in their field and are looking to build in their field. Honestly, it’s a great thing to be doing in your community.
A lot of jobs are looking for what you do outside of work, what you’re doing in your community. I was asked that the other day. “What are you doing outside of your work?” And I had to stop for a second and think, “I’m working in nonprofit, I’m working in my community.” But I have to think too, “What am I doing outside of my work? What am I doing in my community on top of this?” So folks are looking for you to be doing a little more on top of what you’re already doing.
NBL: Do any “littles” go on to become “bigs?” Is that a common situation?
RK: Yes. I haven’t been here for long enough to know if it’s common, but I have heard that there are definitely “littles” who go on to grow up and become “bigs.” I was very surprised when I was at UMass Dartmouth recently … and I had some kids who were coming by my table and they were saying, “Big Brothers Big Sisters. I was a ‘little’ when I was younger.”
They looked at my flier and they said, “I know that kid!” It was very beautiful for me because as somebody who’s now in this work it was one of those moments where, “Oh, that’s why I’m in this work.” You have kids who are coming into this program who are going onto college, who are going through this program and seeing their other friends who are being supported by the program. They’re wanting to go back to this program.
NBL: What attracted you to this position and what are your goals and vision?
RK: I really have enjoyed some of my previous work. The two nonprofits that I was working at were the appetizers for what landed me this role. My previous roles were program coordinator, so it was really getting into the depths of planning and running programs with youth and really working with youth directly.
And my most recent role was fundraising and development. Being out there working with funders, with donors, spreading our mission and activating folks to be excited about the mission of our work.
And I saw this role as kind of combining both of those aspects of that work and combining my passion for youth development with a more hands-on, community focused approach. So that’s what Big Brothers Big Sisters offered, this opportunity, the mission of providing one-on-one mentoring relationships really resonated with me. That’s how I found myself here.
My goals are to activate people in this region. What I mean by activating is to have families who are reaching out to us who have identified this want for a mentor in their lives, definitely folks who know that their child would benefit from having another person in their life. And my role really is to activate folks in the community and surrounding communities in the South Coast and Brockton to step up and be that person, that “big” in the child’s life.
NBL: In what ways will you work with communities and businesses?
RK: Really being as visible as possible. I really want to be able to come into businesses, give brief info sessions and get people interested, get people to understand what mentoring means. Kind of breaking it down, to make it a little less scary for folks, and just getting them to want to step up and book that interview to become a volunteer.
NBL: How is the South Coast region unique?
RK: The South Coast has deep roots and I think it’s really vibrant. One of the things that I’ve found really beautiful as I’ve been meeting with different partners, is that people are there and people want to support each other. I’m not saying that people in Boston don’t want to support each other, but it’s so huge that they don’t know each other. There might be big commitments that you can make, but you can’t necessarily hold onto it. Whereas in the South Coast I’ve found that there is a deep sense of community and pride. That is something I have seen that is very different.
NBL: You were raised by a single mom in an academic setting — Wheaton College in Norton. How did that situation shape your perspective and how has it helped you with this new position? How does your degree in Anthropology prepare you for this role?
RK: My mom is a cultural anthropologist and growing up with a cultural anthropologist as my only parent was very interesting as a kid. I’ll say I had a deep sense of community on Wheaton’s campus. The saying “You were raised by a village, it takes a village,” really resonated with me. Every student that my mom taught was my sibling. All of her faculty members are still very close people in my life. These are folks that are my aunts and uncles basically, and their children became mentors to me. I was the baby on campus for quite some time. I was very protected for a while. I bring up that she was a cultural anthropologist because we traveled a lot. She built a very strong community in East Africa and that was a place where I felt very comfortable, very at home, and that was where I did a lot of my initial community building and service. That’s where I felt initially drawn to.
However, when I was in college I felt a little more urgency to do things back home in the states. …
I didn’t think I was going to be in youth empowerment initially and I’m really glad that I am. … Having that background in cultural anthropology really gives me a perspective of being able to realize that people come from all different walks of life and treating everybody with a level of respect, dignity and humanity. Just because we come from different backgrounds, we come from different cultures, we come from different means, doesn’t mean we don’t deserve some level of respect, the same level of opportunity.
And I think that’s something that does resonate with me about Big Brothers Big Sisters. One of the things we talk about is we’re defenders of potential for any child. Any child can sign up for our program. It’s not designed for one child. Any adult can sign up for our mentoring. It’s not designed for one ideal adult.
NBL: How did your experiences in Africa affect your perspective on the world and your perspective on America as well?
RK: It kind of revolved around one of the activities my mother had her students do. One of their first activities was just to write down in journals everything that they were seeing. And from the airport on they were writing their observations. One of the things as an anthropologist is you write what you’re observing and you’re keeping all of your judgments out of your observations.
And at the end of the three and a half weeks of the program you share a research paper that you’ve written and you share some of those observations that you’ve written. And a lot of those students share that their first observations that they wrote reflected a lot of their preconceived judgments.
They saw folks walking on the street and they characterized them as homeless. They thought children on the street didn’t have families and it was a lot of things that they really didn’t understand until they really were immersed in the community and they realized that there was a lot more going on than what they were observing. They didn’t realize until they were exposed to the culture.
Expanding your experience and being able to see that people live lives in all different types of ways, there’s not just one way of living life. The thing that I really appreciate in Tanzania is that life is not this … express train of doing things super fast. …
During the pandemic, my mom was not able to run her summer abroad program with her students. We were trapped in the states, and I was shifting my work from retail, and I was thinking “How can I be more community oriented?”
I really can’t do this work internationally, as I might have wanted to do. This global work that I had in mind is not attainable right now, so what can I do in my backyard? How can I help my community versus having a global mindset?
I had been working in nonprofit and I liked it, but I was still itching to have a global impact. “How can I still be out there in the world?” But I was realizing that I need to be in my community, my community could use my support more right now.
NBL: What are the challenges you see with this program in your tenure?
RK: Activating folks that want to volunteer. I think some people see the one-year commitment as scary and so I’m really going to emphasize breaking that down. I’m going to ask for two days a month for two to three hours. So if you break that down it’s 40 hours in a year, less than a two-day commitment.
Around the nation, volunteering has dropped since even before the pandemic. So that’s just all around. Male volunteers are really hard to find, that’s a challenge. So trying to activate folks in the community to get them excited to volunteer, to get them excited about mentoring kids in their community. That’s the thing. There’s kids in your community who want somebody. But also recognizing the needs of the community and the capacity of folks who have time.
I want to be accessible to folks, [so that] folks feel like they can reach out to me. Whether it’s a business, whether it’s an organization, I want to make myself as accessible as possible. The thing about cultural anthropology is I don’t come into a community thinking that I know everything. I have to observe and immerse, and that takes time. That takes listening. That takes observing, getting to know folks. I also understand that that takes a level of trust. So just being able to build that trust, and that takes time.
NBL: What is your dream scenario?
RK: My dream scenario is having businesses inviting me in for an info session. Once I feel comfortable … I’m going to start knocking on doors. My plan of attack is to make sure I have clear material. I want to get my fliers as clear as possible and make it accessible, break down the language, make it clear what mentoring in the community looks like.
… I think that folks don’t recognize that we’re here so we have to be as visible as possible. I’ve joined the chamber of commerce, I’m going to events. I’m going to be knocking on some doors. I’m going to be at some barbershops soon. There’s no shortage of “littles,” so I want to activate more volunteers before I take on more kids.
Interested in getting involved? You can visit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Mass or contact Kerner directly at rkerner@emassbigs.org.
Sean McCarthy is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to The New Bedford Light.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
