Mentoring and Peer Support
A mentor can offer 1:1 support, coaching and guidance to another person by helping them to learn new skills, by sharing what he/she has learned and and by being a good role model. Mentors can help with things like social skills, work skills, community acceptance and working towards goals.
Peer support is getting help from someone who has had common experiences, situations, problems or disability. Peers can help with social and emotional support, daily living and advocacy, for example. It is not meant to replace professional counseling or other services.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts
Provides children who lack positive adult role models with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one relationships with caring, responsible adults that change their lives for the better, forever. Community-based mentoring relationships involve one-on-one outings and activities, doing things the Big and Little enjoy together.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay
75 Federal Street, 8th floor
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 617-542-9090
Fax: 617-542-8855
Email: info@bbbsmb.org
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA)
Chapters in Massachusetts offer peer support groups.
Find a Massachusetts Group
Online Support Groups
Highland Street AmeriCorps Ambassadors of Mentoring
The Highland Street AmeriCorps Ambassadors of Mentoring (AOMs) are AmeriCorps members who are placed at mentoring programs and youth-serving organizations statewide to help strengthen programs in the areas of match support, program development, marketing, strategic planning and mentor/mentee recruitment, mentor/mentee or parent training and curriculum development, and program development and start-up.
Family Services of Merrimac Valley
Offers four mentoring programs.
- Big Friends Little Friends – A youth mentoring program that matches caring adult mentors with young people who could benefit from a relationship with a positive adult role model. The goal of the program is to develop the positive potential of young people by providing them with support, guidance and friendship. Big Friends Little Friends serves 15 towns in the Merrimack Valley.
- Stand & Deliver – Program recognizes the intelligence, talent and abilities of Lawrence Public School students and is determined to give them the support they need to reach their full academic potential. By providing one-on-one academic mentoring in partnership with some of the area’s most prestigious businesses, Stand & Deliver fills the gaps in knowledge, skills and support that students need to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam required for high school graduation in the state of Massachusetts.
Stand & Deliver currently partners with New Balance, Raytheon, Pfizer, Schneider Electric and Charles River Labs. New corporate partners are always welcome. - Success Mentors – Family Services has replicated the evidence-based “Success Mentors” model to provide mentoring to chronically absent students in the Lawrence Public Schools. and connects them with a school-based mentor. This model, developed as part of the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, is being funded by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
- Amigos Mentoring – Through a collaboration with the Guilmette Middle School, the Arlington Middle School, and the RISE Academy in Lawrence, Family Services is providing young people with positive adult role models with the goal of helping young people avoid risk behaviors and involvement with the juvenile justice system. Amigos is funded by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Massachusetts Association for Mental Health
Offers tutoring and mentoring programs.
130 Bowdoin St., Suite 309
Boston, MA 02108
Phone: 617-742-7452
Fax 617-742-1187
Listing of mentoring programs in Massachusetts serving children and youths 5-18 years old.
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Offers peer support resources, peer mentors and groups
The Schrafft’s Center
529 Main Street Suite 1M17
Boston, MA 02129
Phone: 617-580-8541
Fax: 617-580-8673
Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services Northeast Behavioral Health
Offers one-on one service for youth with significant behavioral, emotional and mental health needs.
Therapeutic Mentoring Program for Youth Brochure (pdf)
Lahey Health Behavioral Services
Northeast Behavioral Health
199 Rosewood Drive, Suite 250
Danvers, MA
Phone: 978-968-1700
Partners for Youth with Disabilities (PYD) Mentoring Program
Goal is to help young people with disabilities meet their full potential for personal development and independence by matching them with a caring adult mentor.
95 Berkeley Street, Suite 109
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-556-4075
TTY: 617-314-2989
Fax: 617-556-4074
Email: info@pyd.org
Therapeutic Mentoring Service Providers
Tufts Health Plan has a list of agencies who provide therapeutic mentoring services for children or teens under the age of 21 throughout Massachusetts
Fact Sheet last updated on: 10/1/2021