School Mentorship: A Necessity for Students with Disabilities (2015)

Undergraduate: Rachel Gentry

Faculty Advisor: Patrick Akos
Department: Public Policy

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There are few opportunities for older students with disabilities to assume mentoring roles and for younger students with disabilities to be mentored by their older counterparts. There are no existing policies that mandate mentorship for these students, but there have been isolated cases in which mentorship in the disability community has been very successful. This project addresses the need of disability mentorship within the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System by developing a mentorship program at Carrboro High School. The program allows high school students with moderate intellectual disabilities to serve as mentors to middle school students with similar disabilities. The aim of the program is to foster leadership skills and confidence in older students and give younger students a role model to whom they can look when navigating the challenges that come with having a disability in a school setting. This practice creates protocol for matching mentor pairs, a curriculum that aims to foster the development of organic friendships, and an evaluation plan by which teachers evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The program aims to provide a structure that yields benefits for all students with disabilities as well as the entire CHCCS community by fostering a culture of acceptance and support for these students. Future public policy action might use this practice and its results to establish educational policy that would allow for positive outcomes to be more widespread.