Journeymen’s Program Model

Throughout Journeymen’s program, our mentoring approach and philosophy is consistent: we do not try to fix boys, give “shoulds” or “should nots”— and we don’t necessarily give advice unless asked. We are non-therapeutic.

Journeymen is about mentoring, which means we see ourselves as equals to the boys. And in a relationship of equality we are able to empathize with the boys while modeling emotional honesty, accountability and courage in they ways we relate to them and the ways we share about our own life experience. We employ the model of L.A.M.B. (listen, admire, model and bless).

Journeymen’s program is comprised of three primary pillars:

We provide a safe environment in which diverse groups of young men come together in community and relate with their peers and mentors, so that they may allow their true unmasked selves to emerge. As they allow their true selves to surface, we honor them for exactly who they are and help them to recognize their unique gifts.

An important focus of our program is to help the boys develop an emotional vocabulary, which is to say that over time they can readily connect with their feelings and put them to words so that they can fully understand themselves, how they carry themselves and, quite simply: what they emotions are they are experiencing and why they may be coming up. For many teenage boys, this is a giant step toward maturing into men.

In the now famous quote by Frederick Douglass “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” we believe the work of Journeymen is in building strong children for an even stronger sustainable future.