Howard Academy officials described an expanded mentoring effort for middle-school girls during a Weekly Wrap Up segment in early January. The Dare to Be Great program, created two to three years ago by Dr. Talbert Irving, provides one-on-one mentors, tutoring and life-skills sessions for girls in sixth through eighth grades.

The program targets students at the middle-school level to fill a gap before the school-age mentoring program Take Stock of Children. "Dare to be Great mentoring program came to fruition about 2 or 3 years ago," said Davida Randolph, director of programs at Howard Academy. "We bring them in for about 9 months to teach them life skills, social skills. We help them academically by putting them in tutoring. We help them behavioral wise by going out to the schools and having monthly meetings to continue to encourage them."

Randolph said the program was initially aimed at young women at Howard Middle School who were having behavioral or academic challenges. The program keeps cohorts together: the first group started in sixth and seventh grade and Randolph said those students are now in 10th grade. "We actually kept them. They're actually in 10th grade in high school now," she said.

Program organizers described several structural elements: each participant is paired with a mentor who follows them through the nine-month program, mentors and staff hold monthly meetings at schools, and the program organizes parent meetings every quarter to include families in support plans. Cohort size has varied: Randolph said the first year included about 15 students, the second year about six or seven, and this year about 21 young women.

The Weekly Wrap Up host noted January is National Mentoring Month and encouraged community volunteers to apply as mentors. Randolph said the program is actively recruiting mentors to match the growing number of participants and that organizers aim to keep following participants through graduation.

Organizer contact information was summarized on air as "contact Howard Academy" for those interested in mentoring; no phone number or email was specified in the segment. The program leadership credited Dr. Talbert Irving as the originator of the idea but did not provide additional details on funding or external partners during the conversation.