Governor to Become Mentor for Teenager

This could be a scene from a Frank Capra movie.

A governor of a state so large and powerful that it would rank among the top 10 nations in the world. And a boy plucked perchance from the streets in the rough part of town.

In real life, they were introduced last week by a mentoring program whose newest volunteer is Gov. Pete Wilson. This week, the governor and the boy will begin to try to form a kind of relationship neither has ever known.

It is supposed to be part friendship, part father-son, part confidant and part playmate. And it is invested with the high hopes of policymakers nationwide who are searching for new ways to avert the tragedies of crime, drugs and violence that afflict too many youth.

“Not all of my hobbies will appeal to this child, I’m aware of that,” Wilson said in an interview. “Really, I want to . . . get to know the child and . . . be relevant to the kid’s needs. So I intend to do things like some homework with him, talk about the child’s goals and how realistic or unrealistic they may be. And to help achieve the goals if, in fact, they make sense.”

Last week the governor and his wife, Gayle, completed two training sessions to prepare for the mentor program. Mentor advocates say the training is crucial for such relationships to work.

Wilson said he received some common sense but important instructions--like not spoiling the child and being cautiously persistent if the youth initially rejects the relationship. Most important, experts say, is a strong commitment to spending a regular period of time together.

The governor and his wife are planning to spend at least an hour per week with the youth. After the initial introduction last week with the boy and his mother, three future meetings have been scheduled, Wilson said.

The teenage boy is from the Sacramento area. But Wilson declined to elaborate because he does not want the boy subjected to a media spotlight.

“I didn’t want to do this thing with television cameras and with . . . reporters hanging around to watch the process,” he said. “I think it has to have some privacy and a little naturalness to work.”

Experts say it is normal for a mentoring relationship to begin awkwardly as two strangers learn about each other and their common interests. But the degrees of separation between Wilson and his charge have raised the curiosity of the Capitol.

Will the boy watch state budget negotiations this summer? Or will the governor take him to a ballgame or a fishing trip?

By reputation, Wilson, 63, is not an avid subscriber to recreation. He is a workaholic. He rarely takes vacations. He does not even play golf. His idea of a good time is a cigar, a Scotch and a book about the Civil War.

“You obviously need to work a little fun into the relationship,” Wilson said. “There will be some purely recreational things that are coming up. But I am compelled to stonewall you because I think we need some privacy.”

Wilson does not want to keep his participation secret, however.

The biggest problem facing mentoring programs is finding adults willing to volunteer their time. Wilson hopes his experience will highlight a program he has made a major component of his effort to stem gang and drug activity among teenagers and young adults.

The governor, with approval from the Legislature, has dedicated $15 million to the California Mentor Initiative. It is intended to vastly expand the state’s mentor programs from barely 70,000 such relationships today to at least 1 million in four years.

Mentoring programs are based on the premise that many youth turn to the camaraderie of gangs or to destructive peers because they lack a role model to inspire their confidence and encourage responsible behavior.

Mentoring programs like Big Brothers and Big Sisters have recorded thousands of success stories over many years. But the concept has never been implemented on such a massive scale or as part of an official state policy to stem unwanted behavior.

That it is now being attempted on a larger stage is a sign of the times, experts say, evidence that government is willing to seek more creative solutions to intractable problems such as youth violence, drugs and gangs.

California’s attention to mentoring programs will be showcased as a national model when Wilson appears today on the stage with President Clinton in Philadelphia for the White House summit on volunteerism.

“I am convinced that unless a whole lot of us step forward . . . a lot of very decent kids are going to wind up making very tragic mistakes that hurt themselves and the people who love them and hurt society in a variety of ways,” Wilson said. “I think that an awful lot of kids are hungry for the kind of affection and the kind of attention that they don’t get and frequently can’t get.”