In early October, Friends of the Children hosted ten members of a Singapore-based - charity called SHINE Children & Youth Services in New York City. The visit was based at the Harlem location of the Friends of the Children – New York chapter, and provided the Singapore group the opportunity to witness the Friends of the Children model in action.

SHINE provides a wide variety of child and family services to communities throughout Singapore with a focus on economic mobility. SHINE and Friends of the Children have a history dating back to 2022 when the Octava Foundation and SHINE approached Friends of the Children with a request to expand to Singapore. SHINE enrolled their first cohort of youth in 2023, and Miles Allen, Terri Sorensen and Dr. Andrae Brown traveled in the fall of 2024 to Singapore to see the model in action.

The week-long reciprocal visit to Friends - New York this October focused on critical topics including training for professional mentors; retention of youth and staff; literacy; data collection and monitoring; challenges unique to large urban areas; and caregiver engagement. The national and New York teams were impressed with SHINE’s commitment to the pilot and the quality of its implementation in Singapore.  

“The SHINE collaboration is helping strengthen our shared understanding of long-term professional mentoring, program delivery, and leadership development,” says Dr. Andrae’ Brown, Chief Officer of Chapter Success. “The visit was a time for us to build a shared, mutual understanding of what professional mentoring is for youth, and energized the teams from Singapore, Friends – New York and Friends – National.”  

In the future, Friends of the Children – National hopes to host visits like this at the National Center of Excellence for Professional Youth Mentoring in Portland, which is currently under construction. Meanwhile, we continue to monitor the great work happening in Singapore and consider the opportunities for future international expansion of the model.