Get Involved - Volunteer or Mentor
Becoming a mentor or volunteer is a great way to make a life-changing difference for children in need of permanency. In Los Angeles County, there are 28,000 children in foster care. By grade 11, only 20% of foster youth are proficient in English, and 5% are proficient in math. In fact, 75% are performing below grade level, and by the third grade 80% have had to repeat a grade.
As a mentor or volunteer, you can connect with foster youth and give them a successful head start during their most important learning years. Whether you have a few hours or a few days, there are many ways you can mentor:
- Education mentoring
- One-to-One community-based mentoring
- Life skills mentoring
- Tutoring
Volunteer or Mentor Near You
Our community partners across Southern California can match you with various mentoring opportunities:
A Place Called Home provides mentoring and volunteering programs and services for disadvantaged youth. You can enrich the lives of foster youth by volunteering or mentoring.
Volunteers are the backbone of A Sense of Home’s operations, functioning and community. All the data systems, websites, social media efforts–even this note–are all created by volunteers. There are many ways to volunteer and be a part of this loving community, from helping at home creations to volunteering weekly to joining the movement.
A Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) is a trained, dedicated and caring community volunteer, who is assigned to work one-on-one with a child in the foster care system. As a CASA in Los Angeles, you can help children across the region thrive.
A Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) is a trained, dedicated and caring community volunteer, who is assigned to work one-on-one with a child in the foster care system. As a CASA in Orange County, you can help children annually who move through the Orange County court system.
For more than 160 years, Maryvale has cared for orphaned, abused and neglected children, evolving into a full-fledged social welfare organization that nurtures traumatized youth in the foster care system. There are lots of ways you can get involved.
The Orangewood Foundation helps foster and community youth transition from foster care into self-sufficient adulthood. As a volunteer, you can help by mentoring a teen or young adult, cooking meals in our onsite kitchen, serving as an audience member in student presentations and providing office help.
Ready To Succeed (RTS) is a Career Prep + Internship program for transition-age foster youth attending four year colleges. You can get involved by joining our Mentor on Demand Network, a growing community of professionals who share their expertise, open their networks and help students explore, and connect to potential employers.
Together We Rise is a non-profit comprised of motivated young adults and former foster youth. Our vision is to improve the lives of foster children in America, who often find themselves forgotten and neglected by the public. We collaborate with community partners to bring resources to foster youth and use service-learning activities to educate volunteers on issues surrounding the foster care system.
United Friends of the Children (UFC)
UFC helps current and former foster youth on their journey to self-sufficiency through service-enriched education and housing programs, advocacy and more.
