Sponsors (5)
The bill expands and standardizes funded mentoring to improve outcomes and career pathways for high-need youth while building an evidence base and guidance, but it creates funding uncertainty, administrative and privacy burdens, and could disadvantage smaller or rural providers or delay improvements pending evaluation.
Low-income and high-need youth (especially in high-poverty or high-need areas) gain access to funded multi-year mentoring that builds social-emotional skills and workforce readiness.
Students with disabilities are explicitly included and supported through mentor training and connections to transition and vocational rehabilitation services.
Programs that partner with employers and postsecondary institutions can connect youth to career pathways, work-based learning, internships, and recognized postsecondary credentials, improving employment prospects.
Funding is uncertain because the program depends on appropriations of 'such sums as may be necessary,' which could limit the program’s scale and reliability for youth and providers.
Detailed application, reporting, and background-check requirements may impose burdens on small community organizations, limiting their ability to apply or deliver services quickly.
Collecting and reporting individual-level academic, employment, and validated social-emotional data raises student privacy and data-security concerns if FERPA and other safeguards are not fully implemented.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 29, 2025 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress January 29, 2025
Creates a federal competitive grant program to fund and expand youth mentoring programs that develop cognitive and social-emotional skills and prepare young people for high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. Sets program design, training, screening, coordination, reporting, and priority requirements; authorizes multi-year grants and unspecified appropriations; and requires a Department of Labor study to evaluate mentoring models and the program's effects within three years.