It can be tough being a kid. Just ask Kristen Miskinis. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that the 18-year-old was sitting back in a classroom with other elementary school students. Miskinis also knows that being a role model can help develop self-esteem.
That’s why she decided to develop a program that matches older students at Leechburg Area School District to serve as mentors with younger students in the district. “I wanted to create a role model program to help the younger students deal with things like bullying and other similar problems, but not call it an anti-bullying program,” she says.
A recent graduate of Leechburg Area High School, Miskinis says she remembers when she was younger getting so excited when seniors would help out with projects. And now she wants to pay it forward. “I remember that I thought the older students were so cool, and I wanted to be like them,” she says. “We all know that preaching doesn’t work with kids, so I wanted to use the older students as role models and mentors.”
Showing braveness early on
Miskinis used the well-known national Big Brothers Big Sisters program as a model for her own project, and named it BRAVE—Behave Responsibility and Value Everybody. The overall mission of BRAVE is to match high school students with elementary school students to promote kindness, and stop bullying and destructive decisions while modeling positive behaviors and actions. “I started working with a fourth-grade teacher, and brainstorming about different things we could do,” Miskinis says.
Working with that teacher, Tanya Sherbondy, Miskinis developed some ideas and wrote up the game plan. She then submitted the idea to the Leechburg Area School District School Board for approval. “I was pretty nervous, but it is a good project,” Miskinkis says. “I felt that they would pass it, and they did. And during the meeting, some of the school board members started sharing their own stories. It was great.”
Close encounters
Miskinkis then teamed up Kelly Sadler, guidance counselor for the Junior/Senior High School, to identify good fits for mentors and mentees. “I loved the idea from the start,” says Sadler. “Having the older students mentor the younger students is a wonderful idea. It works here because we have the unique situation of all being under the same roof.”
The duo kicked off the program in 2013, right after the school board approval. More than 50 students volunteered to be mentors, and younger students were signing up just as quickly to get a mentor. “We couldn’t believe how popular it was,” Sadler says.
The younger students were signed up by recommendations through parents and teachers, and were then matched with mentors based on needs, schedules and interests. Because the elementary, middle and high schools are adjacent, the senior high students can easily visit the younger students during lunch and open periods.
Sadler says the schools’ proximities have been a key to the BRAVE program’s success. The mentors can have lunch with their mentees, help them with homework, and even go to physical education class with them. “Some of the guys will go to gym class, and throw a ball or play a game with the younger kids. Sometimes the mentors just go and have lunch, or just give them a positive word or piece of advice during a walk,” Sadler says. The older students have also been able to attend some of the holiday parties, and help with arts and crafts, and other projects.
Passing the torch
So far, the BRAVE program has just matched high school students with elementary school students. But there are plans to expand the project to the middle school students in the near future. “There tends to be so much drama at that age, and we want to help with that,” Miskinis says.
Though Miskinis graduated in June, the program will continue under Sadler’s guidance and with incoming juniors and seniors as new mentors. And Miskinis plans to stop by now and then to check up on the new mentees. “I have met so many of the younger students, and have relationships with them. I want to see how they are doing,” she says.
Miskinis is excited about attending Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the fall to major in nursing, but knows she left behind a worthwhile program. “I hope that I left the school a little better because of BRAVE,” she says.
