The Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership has long been helping youth in local communities, and while it’s seeing the fruits of its labor pay off, it isn’t content to just sit back and admire the results.

The partnership is a nonprofit organization that works to provide mentoring services to youth in need of support or direction by teaming kids with local community members to work together and build relationships. Currently, mentors meet with their students while they are in school for one hour a week. The majority of relationships begin with students in elementary school but the partnership has found that more time is needed when students get to high school due to the difficulty in matching schedules between students and mentors.

Arlene McNulty, president and CEO of the partnership, and Geoffrey Schoos, vice chair on the partnership’s Board of Directors, were present at the school committee’s first meeting of 2009 on Tuesday to update the committee on the program’s progress in Warwick schools and plans for future improvement.

“We have over 280 mentors volunteering one hour a week in the Warwick schools to help students become more successful,” McNulty said. “We surveyed the teachers and found that 99 percent of them felt that the kids have improved in self-esteem, attitude in school, attendance and academic performance.”

McNulty said the partnership was also proud of the results of a program evaluation conducted by an outside agency, which was brought in using Division of Developmental Disabilities grant money. The results showed a 53 percent improvement in reading, 82 percent improvement in writing and 49 percent improvement in math among students with mentors.

“We’re pleased that someone from the outside can show that the program is working,” she said. “We even have two prior students, one working at Citizens Bank and the other at MetLife, who are now being mentors [to other students].” McNulty said the Mentoring Partnership has been able to help its students develop careers through its partnership with the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority, which was created to provide financial assistance to students and their families.

“The obstacle we’re seeing right now is students graduating from elementary school and moving onto middle school and high school because it’s much harder [for students and mentors] to find time to meet at that level,” McNulty said. Schoos, who has been a mentor for more than 15 years, said the idea to improve the relationship by allowing mentors to meet with their students outside of school grounds came when the partnership was creating it’s strategic plan more than a year ago.

“Eighteen months ago, we sat down to develop a strategic plan and we decided our target goal was the retention of mentoring relationships after sixth grade because we were seeing a precipitous drop due to the difficulty in matching up schedules between students and mentors,” he said.

Schoos said the partnership has been working for the last six to nine months in collaboration with the school department to develop a pilot program that would allow mentors to meet one-on-one with their students outside of school grounds. “This would be limited to junior and senior high and all mentors would have to meet certain criteria in order to participate,” he said. “Our first priority is the safety of all participants in the program so each mentor would have to get renewed BCI checks, both state and local.”

Schoos continued by saying all mentoring relationships that would take place off school grounds must be at least two years old.

“We never encourage a new [mentoring] relationship at the high school level because a good relationship must withstand the test of time,” he said. “It takes time to build a relationship and to get to know one another and become comfortable with one another.”

Schoos said many of the mentoring relationships that have been established are long lasting, using an example of mentor Peter Koch who has relationships with some of his students lasting 17 or 20 years and still stays in contact with them.

In addition to renewing BCI and ensuring mentoring relationships are at least two years old, Schoos said all participating mentors would have to undergo additional training in order to meet the needs, concerns and challenges of mentoring older students.

“There’s a world of difference between a cute fourth-grader and a high school student who can have many more struggles,” he said.

Schoos said, by necessity, the program would take place in public areas such as movie theaters, malls or ball games, whether it is a Paw Sox game or a Vets football game. He said many things would be off limits, however.

“Out of state travel would be prohibited, unless it was with an organized group sanctioned by the Mentoring Partnership,” he said. “No ‘Sunday drives in the country’ because that’s a recipe for problems and no chaperon [mentor] home visits. We know that Big Brothers and Big Sisters permit home visits, but we have a different process from theirs.”

Schoos said overnight visits and weekend trips would also be prohibited, unless sanctioned by the Mentoring Partnership.

“We also would not permit a mentor picking up a student at school because we feel that is strictly the responsibility of the parents,” he said. “Our primary concern is to safeguard the relationship of the mentor and the mentee and the vulnerability of the mentee. We’re asking for your support and hope to continue working with the school department if this is approved.”

When questioned yesterday if the School Committee would need to give the Mentoring Partnership formal approval to expand the program by way of a committee vote, committee Chairman Christopher Friel said he would need to find out but didn’t hesitate to express his support of the program.

“The Mentoring Partnership is an outstanding organization that does a lot of good not just in Warwick but throughout the state,” he said. “I think expanding the program is fine; it’s well developed, they maintain a thorough screening process and the safety of the students is a priority, as they demonstrated at last night’s meeting.”