What's Next? is a mentoring program bringing together young people with physical disabilities and adults with similar disabilities who are living active, full -- successful -- lives in the San Diego community. We take pride in our efforts to provide each mentee with a mentor who is matched by functional ability. gender, personality, and ethnicity whenever possible. After the 2-3 month matching process, mentors and mentees enjoy one-on-one time within a social group environment and by phone and email. Two Saturdays a month we get together for fun, sharing of experiences and presentations on topics ranging from independent living, managing personal attendant services, Social Security benefits, and Department of Rehabilitation programs. We want young people with physical disabilities -- and their families -- to see that life with a disability can be interesting and rewarding. Mentees need to realize that they can go to college and/or work. And we live by example We have structured and staffed What's Next? so that everywhere our young people look, they see adults with disabilities in leadership roles. What's Next? was developed in 2004 under the leadership of Cyndi Jones, Director of The Center for an Accessible Society, a non-profit enterprise engaged in programs designed to enhance the lives of people with disabilities. Mentors are Volunteers. All program Mentors are volunteers who have been thoroughly screened, including a background and FBI fingerprint check, and trained.

Mentees are Volunteers. All Mentees also volunteer to participate in the program and, for Mentees who are minors, their parents must sign permission forms that allow them to participate in the program.

Program Commitments

Mentors and Mentees must commit to a mentoring cycle of approximately 12 months. Participants are required to meet with each other twice a month in a group setting. Participants may also contact one another by phone or email at other times as mutually agreed. All contacts must be recorded on the logging forms.

Matching Criterion. Individuals are matched on the basis of interests and the potential for personal chemistry. The program matches the same gender, and when possible, functional similarity.

Mentor Training

Mentors go through 3 hours initial training. This workshop describes the process of mentoring as well as program guidelines. After the training, Mentors must sign a Mentor Participation Agreement that states that they will uphold What's Next? Youth Mentoring Program's policies and program rules as described in this manual.

Mentee Orientation.

Mentees will undergo a brief orientation that describes the rules, as well as how to get the most out of the mentoring relationship. Mentees must sign a Mentee Participation Agreement that states that they will uphold program rules. Parent Orientation and Participation Agreement. The Mentees' parents will also be given a brief orientation about the program. If they approve their son or daughter's inclusion into the program, they will sign a participation agreement as well as other consent forms.

Ongoing Training

Mentors are asked to meet together for a "Mentor roundtable" every 3 months in order to discuss the successes and hurdles the match is experiencing, as well as effective communication, youth development and leadership, and best practices for mentors.

The Monitoring Process

Mentors and Mentees are monitored throughout the match by the Director and Program Coordinator. The main purpose of monitoring is to see that Mentees and Mentors are relatively happy with the progress of the match. Monitoring is to include observation of the Mentor and Mentee interaction at least once per month by the Director and Program Coordinator. The Director and Program Coordinator will also review the monthly Mentor log.

About The Center for an
Accessible Society

The Center for an Accessible Society is a national organization founded in 1999 to promote the full inclusion -- in our communities, places of business and neighborhoods -- of individuals of all ages and abilities. For more than five years, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research, the Center has worked to expand media coverage of critical disability-related issues, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, education, employment, universal design, aging, long-term personal assistance services, voting, discrimination and civil rights. In 2004, the Center added another crucial element: Mentoring promising high school students with disabilities, helping to expand the possibilities for youth in the 21st Century.

Cyndi Jones was a media darling at the age of 6 as a March of Dimes Poster Child. She was exploited to raise money. The experience changed her life, making her a life-long activist for persons with disabilities. A graduate of the University of California at San Diego, she has spent most of her adult years as a publisher (MAINSTREAM Magazine) and public relations specialist, making media designed to help define and promote a broad-based community of people with disabilities based on human and civil rights. In a society where disability is viewed as a fate worse than death, Jones works to explode the myths that disability makes a person dependent, sick, unproductive and useless. She established the Center for an Accessible Society to work with media on disability issues, and to educate the public in other ways, as for example the What's Next? mentoring program. CjonesATaccessiblesocietyDOTorg

Almost all of the other staff members are also people with disabilities:

Suzanne Stolz

Suzanne Stolz is director of curriculum for What’s Next? She also is a doctoral student at the University of California—San Diego, focusing her research on how students with disabilities build their futures. Previously a high school teacher and administrator, Suzanne is an advocate for teaching students and teachers better ways to conceptualize disability and has presented her curriculum at national conferences.
Suzanne’s interest in mentoring has grown from various personal and professional experiences. She led an AmeriCorps team of mentors at an area middle school and saw the value of caring adults in the lives of youth. After years of volunteering at an MDA summer camp, Suzanne was excluded when policies declared that counselors must be non-disabled. She now loves working with a program that was designed to provide mentors as models for what youth can accomplish. SuzanneATaccessiblesocietyDOTorg

Cathy Castro

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William Stothers

William G. Stothers worked as a journalist for nearly 40 years. He earned degrees from the University of Western Ontario, and from the University of California at Berkeley. He worked at newspapers in Toronto and San Diego. In 1972, at The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, he orchestrated the writing and editing of one of the first examinations of independent living and disability rights issues ever in the mainstream press. Stothers joined The San Diego Union in 1978, serving successively as Assistant City Editor, Executive Financial Editor, and ombudsman for the newspaper's nearly 400,000 readers. In 1992, Stothers joined MAINSTREAM, a leading national news and lifestyles magazine for people with disabilities since 1975. In 1998, Stothers became Deputy Director of The Center for an Accessible Society, which was established under a five-year grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to disseminate research information on independent living and disability. In 2004, The Center began What's Next?, a mentoring program for young people with physical disabilities. WstothersATaccessiblesocietyDOTorg