Davis, executive director of Carroll County Youth Services Bureau, is also the chair of Mentoring Connections, a committee comprised of representatives from youth services organizations across the county.

The committee is taking its first steps toward bringing more mentoring programs to Carroll. Next month it will begin a survey of local organizations to find out what kind of mentoring programs already exist and how they can be helped.

"We're really going to explore every avenue to get mentoring into Carroll County, or at least on a bigger scale," Davis said recently.

Mentoring programs like Boys & Girls Clubs or Big Brothers Big Sisters involve partnering a troubled child with a positive adult role model. Mentors spend time each week with the child. The programs are most successful when the mentors receive training and commit to at least a year of working with their child, said David Tucker, a Carroll County supervisor for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.

Though neighboring counties like Howard and Frederick have large programs, mentoring has been conspicuously absent in Carroll.

"That's a real gap for youth services in our county," Tucker said.

The department's Carroll County office was one of the organizations that spearheaded the mentoring committee, which also includes representatives from Junction, Inc., Youth Services Bureau, the Business and Employment Resource Center (BERC), McDaniel College, Carroll Community College, the Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County and others.

Most professionals agree that mentoring is a useful tool in helping troubled youth.

"Research time and time again proves how effective it is in deferring risky behavior and improving school performance," said Laurie Beard, a manager of community health improvement for the Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County.

According to Tucker, mentoring programs like Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters are more prevalent in urban areas and have been slow in coming to Carroll County.

"Because of the changing demographics of the county, services haven't caught up with that yet," Tucker said.

Most of the mentoring programs that do exist in the county are small, Davis said. She hopes to use the information from the upcoming survey to apply for grants to bring more programs to the area and help existing programs. The survey will look for mentoring programs in churches, schools and community groups.

Reach staff writer Stephen Snyder at 410-857-7862 or ssnyder@lcniofmd.com.

Mentoring programs

Organizations that have mentoring programs are encouraged to call Laurie Beard at 410-871-6372 or e-mail lbeard@carrollhospitalcenter.org. For more information about mentoring programs in Maryland visit www.marylandmentors.org.