Big Brothers Big Sisters Benefits From Professor’s Dedication

One of the best-known organizations for children in the United States is thankful for Dr. David DuBois. For the last two years, the professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health has been focused on a vision to improve the community-based mentoring program for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

Art Mollenhauer, CEO for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago, said DuBois’ contribution has been invaluable.

“David has been a critical and very influential member of our program committee, which provides oversight and guidance for our programs,” Mollenhauer said. “He has also been very involved in our agency. David has provided excellent guidance on policy decisions. He serves as a good source of relevant data regarding different decisions, and he understands the interaction of programs, partners, policy and fund development.”

DuBois’ work at Big Brothers Big Sisters has been made possible with the help of a Distinguished Fellows award from the William T. Grant Foundation.

“I had worked previously with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago to develop, implement and evaluate a mentoring program for girls with the support of funding from the National Institute of Mental Health,” DuBois said. “This experience, and the recent hiring of a dynamic new leader, Art Mollenhauer, with an obvious commitment to organizational growth and learning, made the agency a logical choice as a local site for my fellowship activities.”

Mollenhauer feels the long-term nature of DuBois’ relationship with Big Brothers Big Sisters was important to the success of his work with the organization.

“David has been studying mentoring within our organization for five years,” he said. “For his current fellowship, we were thrilled to have him take his involvement to a new level by shadowing staff and participating directly in our day-to-day operations. His goal of using what he learns to develop an evidence-based, decision-making resource for agencies like ours is very exciting, and we look forward to partnering with him in this ground-breaking work.”

DuBois and his work were recently featured in a Big Brothers Big Sisters newsletter. The article points out that 10 years ago, DuBois himself served as a Big Brother to a young man named Sandy. His experience with Sandy shaped the direction of his academic work on mentoring best practices.

While DuBois’ fellowship recently came to a close, he will continue to work with Big Brothers Big Sisters on research projects that have emerged from his experience. He points to the organization’s large-scale impact as a key factor in working with the group.

“Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is the nation’s largest mentoring program, serving over a quarter of a million youth each year,” he said. “The organization is also highly respected within the field for its adherence to quality standards and its commitment to continuous improvement through research. Focusing my fellowship on this organization thus provided the potential for any contributions I might make to have large-scale impact on youth. It was also an ideal opportunity to observe evidence-based decision making in action within an organization that embraces its principles.”

DuBois, who is also with the Institute for Health Research and Policy at UIC SPH, explained that the principles of evidence-based decision making are critical to help shape such important mentoring programs for children.

“For my field, it involves the use of both external research and internal program monitoring and evaluation data to inform decisions about the design and ongoing improvement of programs for youth,” he said.

Students at UIC benefited from the project as well, expanding their education through mentoring and other contributions to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Kenya McRae, one of DuBois’ advisees, coordinated a mentoring program that grew out of his fellowship and that was overseen and implemented by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago. She also served as a teaching assistant for the course DuBois developed at UIC SPH to support the students who served as mentors in this program.

“Kenya worked with me closely to design and implement a service-learning class as part of my fellowship,” DuBois said. For this class, “UIC undergraduate students served as mentors for elementary school students at St. Ann’s parochial school in the Pilsen neighborhood.”

McRae praises the experience that working with DuBois and Big Brothers Big Sisters has brought to her studies at UIC SPH.

“I worked with Dr. DuBois as a teaching assistant for his Youth Mentoring: Research and Practice course and as the project coordinator for the Big Brothers Big Sisters field component,” she said. “It was a very enriching experience for me to participate in both aspects. I learned first-hand how to develop a course and how to provide instruction in a higher-education setting.”

Ultimately McRae felt that DuBois’ personal touch brought a greater impact to his work.

“Dr. DuBois is a model instructor,” she said. “He is very conscientious in the development of his courses, the inclusion of materials, the messages conveyed, and the sharing of his personal experiences. The latter point was particularly fruitful for the students, because through Dr. DuBois’ sharing his own Big Brother experiences, he demonstrated that he understood the challenges the students encountered in their own mentoring relationships.”

“I also believe that the structure of the course, classroom instruction combined with a one-year, field component, provided a unique opportunity for the students, many of whom indicated that they would not have otherwise participated in a program like Big Brothers Big Sisters,” McRae added.

Not only did DuBois’ students learn theory inside the classroom and application of their knowledge outside the classroom, but they were personally affected by the impact they made through their work.

“The highlight of the course was the 30 lives of 15 young adults and 15 children that were touched in a meaningful way,” McRae said. “All of this is attributed to Dr. DuBois’ commitment to mentoring and education and his receipt of the fellowship.”

To read the Big Brothers Big Sisters newsletter that features DuBois and his work, visit: http://www.bbbs.org/atf/cf/%7B98E799DD-A4E0-4452-9888-8BD5A47881FC%7D/Revised%20BBBS_talkBIG_sum08.pdf

As part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters UIC Class Mentoring Program, Professor DuBois sits with two students from St. Ann’s Parochial School in Pilsen.