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Town of North Hempstead Submits Action Plan for President’s ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ Challenge


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 14, 2015
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Town of North Hempstead Submits Action Plan for President’s ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ Challenge
Plan includes mentoring & internships to help students reach full potential

North Hempstead, NY – The Town of North Hempstead recently submitted its Local Action Plan to Washington as part of the “My Brother’s Keeper” (MBK) Challenge, an initiative from President Barack Obama, which focuses on efforts to eliminate opportunity gaps, barriers, and challenges facing youth in the community and to ensure that all young people can reach their full potential. North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth said the Town’s Action Plan will address the Town’s goals of ensuring all youth graduate from high school, complete post-secondary education or training and are employed. It includes a strong mentoring program that will start in ninth grade and will allow students to explore different careers throughout high school, participate in a speakers’ series about careers and engage in internships.

“We have taken the President’s challenge very seriously and I believe that we have designed a formidable action plan,” said Supervisor Bosworth. “The foundation of the Town’s plan is based on the need for mentoring young people at a critical time of their lives and I know that with the strong commitment we have from our key group of interested parties, that we will make a difference in the lives of these students.”

The Town’s Action Plan calls for establishing a pilot program with the assistance of the Mentoring Partnership of Long Island (MPLI), which will include a small group of ninth graders from both Westbury High School and the and Manhasset-Great Neck EOC. Mentors, who will volunteer and be trained by representatives of MPLI, will guide students to areas of study and work in which they demonstrate interest; encourage them in their scholastic endeavors; and ultimately help them in choosing and applying for post-secondary options. Mentors would agree to meet with the students over the course of their four years of high school.

In addition, the program will include a well-structured summer internship program which would expose students to a wide variety of job possibilities and give them important workplace experience.

Students would be chosen with the help of the Westbury School District and the Manhasset-Great Neck EOC. MPLI has agreed to recruit, screen, train, match, monitor and support the mentors, following the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring.

In addition to this curriculum and the work the mentors will do with their mentees, the Town will create a speakers series, tapping into some of the Town’s workforce to speak to the students as a group about what their job (and the jobs of those who work for them) entail in order to expose the students to real career options and allow them to ask questions about what it is like to perform those jobs.

Cindy Cardinal, Chief of Staff for the Supervisor, and Rachel Brinn, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Supervisor, are the local points of contact for the My Brother’s Keeper Challenge working in tandem with the Town of North Hempstead. For more information on how to get involved with MBK in the Town of North Hempstead, please contact cardinalc@northhempsteadny.gov.


Front row are Councilwoman Lee Seeman, Supervisor Judi Bosworth and Councilwoman Dina De Giorgio and other attendees of the “My Brother’s Keeper” Presidential challenge local action summit, held in Town Hall.

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