YSU seeking volunteer mentors for teens

YOUNGSTOWN

A new program at Youngstown State University aims to provide college or career direction for teenagers who would benefit from the added guidance, but it needs volunteer mentors to make it happen.

YSU’s Senior Youth Mentorship Program, a partnership among the university’s Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, Safehouse Ministries and Big Brothers-Big Sisters of the Mahoning Valley, launched last September.

The program is the brainchild of Joseph Lyons, director of YSU’s Master of Health and Human Services degree program and an assistant professor of health professions.

“The key is getting mentors — academics and from the unions — to sign up and help us,” said Lyons, who is himself a mentor.

Kurt Welsh, a YSU graduate student who is working with Lyons, said it’s a way to help young people who may not have someone else in their lives to help them navigate the course to college or career.

Read more about the program in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.