Investment in Families through 2-Generation Youth Professional Mentoring Service Project Summary: Funds would support family stability for those facing significant social and economic barriers and help each family thrive through 1:1 professional, youth mentoring interventions and whole-family supports. This one-time investment will catalyze organizational growth through technology and facility equipment, setting the organization up for regional expansion. Project Amount: $250,000 About Friends-Boston: Friends of the Children is a unique and innovative model that was created by a former foster care youth to interrupt the cycle of generational poverty. Friends of the Children-Boston (Friends-Boston) was founded in 2004 with a mission to impact generational change by empowering youth who are facing the greatest obstacles through relationships with professional mentors – 12+ years, no matter what. The premise of our model is straightforward and transformative: Enter the lives of children facing the toughest challenges early, and provide them with a dedicated, caring adult who stays by their side from kindergarten through graduation. We work with public schools in high poverty areas to intentionally seek out and select those who face the highest barriers. We provide these children and youth, whom we call Achievers, with a 1:1 professional mentor from kindergarten through graduation. We provide wrap-around services in every area of our children’s lives, acting as connectors and advocates, and working closely with caregivers, schools, and the systems that touch their lives. This year we are building our new Supportive Services Department providing 2-Gen Support and supporting our third year at our new expansion site of East Boston. We currently serve 152 Achievers with our 2Gen work impacting 550 family members. Project Detail: We are a nonprofit serving Massachusetts that utilizes a unique and nationally-proven, child-centered 2-Generation (2Gen) model that overcomes generational poverty through both providing long-term, professional youth mentoring services for 12+ years from kindergarten through graduation, and working with caregivers to stabilize the whole-family. The results are healthy children meeting developmental milestones, healthy parents with family-supporting jobs, and better-connected individuals able to participate in civic and family life. According to the Harvard Business School of Oregon, every $1 invested in program youth returns $7 to the community. That $7 return on investment becomes almost $27 when siblings, classmates and the next generation are included in the equation.Our families live in generational poverty, and we proactively target those facing the highest barriers even among their neighbors. They experience a confluence of multiple risks including generational factors, systemic conditions, and trauma. We onboard from zip codes with some of the highest poverty rates in the state: Roxbury, Dorchester, and East Boston. We continue to serve these families even if they move, and we currently serve them when they have moved to the North and South Shores, and as far west as Springfield. The social safety net is burdened when children are born to parents who are teens, incarcerated, or did not graduate from high school. It’s not just negative costs, but an opportunity cost when children growing up in Massachusetts don’t provide that strong educational pipeline of talent that's critical for our local businesses and the state.Today, the demand for our support has drastically increased as community members and school officials across our region inquire about new potential partnerships. Boston is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with cost of living out of reach for most of our Achievers’ families, and the most vulnerable families spread across the region to Brockton, Lynn, Lowell, Worcester, and Springfield. They are increasingly facing barriers around housing and food insecurity, lingering mental health barriers, and equal access to educational quality. Our current Boston-only selection process is no longer enough to address the regional issue. We are doubling the number of children and families served and growing regionally starting with our first satellite location in East Boston, and soon growing to a Gateway City. To support this, we need to purchase new equipment for to serve a larger number of children in Roxbury and build our technology to enable us to work in multiple locations. This year, private foundations have supported $125,000 for technology and renovation of the space, and $100,000 to open a space in East Boston. However, anticipated future funding will limit future expansion during which the needs of additional children and families will not be met. An investment now at this inflection point will allow us to significantly speed up our process.We are currently exploring partnerships to onboard and select children and youth in foster care. As experts on our families, we are able to find paths forward so that the child is placed with a caring relative and experiences minimum disruption while the caregiver gets back on their feet. Ultimately, we lower the burden on the foster care system and our children and families have fewer disruptions and better outcomes, lowering the costs for future federal and state support. It also provides a critical pathway for identifying and recruiting those children and families facing the highest barriers state-wide as we continue to grow to face the need state-wide.The knowledge gained in this expansion will be shared and improve services in 40+ locations in our national network.