My brothers wife used to work in administration for BB BS in California. My children all had Bigs here in IL. My kids got into BB BS becuz my husband was catatonic at the time, our WRAP and SASS persons got us in.
For my oldest difficult child, the program staff thought it would not be a problem, even with her diagnosis. BB BS decided along with WRAP to find a match for both my daughters at the same time, different Bigs, but they did not want one child to be jealous of the other. Bigs are volunteers, and they get a couple hours of scant training. It is much more difficult to find male volunteers to be big brothers than it is to find big sister.
So they found 2 people to be bigs for my daughters. For difficult child, a married student preschool teacher, for easy child a single lawyer.
Now even before that difficult child had a mentor thru the county, (not a vounteer, a paid student therapist who also worked at battered womens shelter)
difficult children Big met with difficult child twice. AFter the 2nd visit, the big ended it. There had been a BB BS event and the 2 kids and 2 bigs had signed up to do something there, and the bigs offered the littles some cookies, difficult child wanted chocolate, but her big hates chocolate, and got upset that anyone would permit a child tohave chocolate. Well, thats what the big gave as her reason for quitting. easy child and PCs big both said difficult child had behaved wonderfully. So, we never did find out what happened. easy child and her big celebrated 9 years of being matched to each other last month. They have met without fail every week, same nite, same time all these years. SOmetimes they go to park, sometimes a movie, sometimes go playboooard games at Bigs home. Big has come to some school events .....
My son was not old enough for a big when my daughters got theirs. when he became old enough, the program signed him on, but the wait for male volunteers is LONG. My son did his wait, and while waiting, a couple times staff asked us if maybe he could have a female Big. I said no becuz I felt he REALLY needed a male influence. Staff said more than once my son is gentle and a female might work fine. (my son has no diagnosis or anything like ODD or bipolar or anything) Meanwhile difficult child had been placed back at end of wait list for HR new big sister, and turns out a new one was NEVER found. Eventually a match was found for my son.
This man was quite strange. BB BS rules here say tht the Big is not tobring friends with, the attention is to belong 100% to the child. The focus is on the child. He wanted to bring his girlfriend. He wanted to cancel plans at very last minute, often did not show up at all and did not call. He never wanted to do anything my son wanted to do, and his interests were quite different than my sons. He got angry when his work had company picnic and we had family plans out of town the same day, and he pouted and had a mini tantrum, becuz he kept saying "But he can bring kids to his company picnic" The match ended completely when this mans mother died, after being matched with my son a few months, but haveing only been with my son maybe 8 times or so- we had a family vacation, our only one ever planned.....it was very long vacation (for us) and we were VERY excited. This man who did not even really have any bond with my son got enraged that we were leaving on our vacation becuz he wanted our son to be at his side at the entire length of the wake AND funeral for his mother, and delay our vacation. My son was - maybe 8? My son had never met this mans mother. And my son had felt NO bond with this man.
We never heard from the man again, altho, turns out BB BS also could not ever reach him again to get HIS explanation for what happened. And while BB BS said they put my son back on the waiting list,my sons name never came up again, and it never showed up on any of the occasinal newsletters for Littles on wait list that came. (Tey often do activities for all the littles includeing littles on waiting list)
Awhile back a county south of me had to end their BB BS program for lack of Bigs, and they transferred the caseload of those littles up to OUR local BB BS.
Now as for difficult children paid mentor from county? Yikes, that did not go a whole lot better. That person was married, would come get my difficult child and take GG to her hosue often. BUT turns out her husband was violent and physically abusive and my difficult child witnessed phsyical abuse to her mentor more than once, and one time after mentor left this man, he came to mentor whenmentor had my difficult child and he physically attacked mentor and her car. Said mentor continues in employment in county at our main mental health services facility and at our battered womens shelter.....but she stopped mentoring my difficult child after about a year. DCFS was giving me a hard time becuz I wanted to end the relationship sooner. BUT the relationship lasted so long that my difficult child still grieves the loss of this person.
SO we have had relationships with BB BS and paid mentors as well, and you just cannot know how it will work out.
PCs match has been wonderful.
We also had well, Timerlady gets PCAs, we get untitled people who do the same things here......we have had MANY. They were paid for by county. Turnover was massive, partly becuz they pay minimum wage, the hours are often not ones people seek for work, and around here, sometimes clients are quite a long distance away. These persons came in all ages, and from all walks of life. Many were young, students, one was actually still in high school. One was rather elderly and fell asleep driving here one day and was gravely injured. Ironic becuz I had jst complained several times to county that this lady always fell asleep when she was here. I especially hated that program, BUT CPS had required us to have it. Our personal experience was we had more bad experiences than good, by far with THAT program. And we were involved in that for over 5 years.
Ironically I also worked in the same program, doing the same work, at the same time. I kept saying hey let me have my kids as my clients. LOL. But that is not permitted. LOL. I kept saying well, I will show up, I will not cancel, I will not get "lost" on the way, and I will still be doing "my job" LOL. 2 of those workers brought their own children with. I did not like that and complained, but my complaints fell on deaf ears. VERY often those people never showed up at all and noone called to say noone would show up-----worse, often the charts and records claimed yes someone DID show up but that we were not here. Or that we sent them away. Not True, not at all.
If you get lucky it can work out wonderfully. Or it can backfire. In our experience there can be times it is worse than nothing. We finally decided that sons Big wanted to BE a Big, becuz ehe wanted a trophy- our son. BUT he could not have cared less about our son, not as a human being, not as a child and did not care about my sons well being, likes or dislikes at all. He just wanted to be able to say "hey look at me, I am a Big" It hurt my son, hurt his feelings for a LONG time after - my son could not figure out what HE had done wrong to make the match bad. My oldest difficult children heart broke every single week when her sisters Big showed up without fail and she had no Big.
Before we had the Bigs and the mentor, my children had never ever ever been babysat by any other person AT ALL. Myolder kids were at the hospital when my youngers were born, with my husband. I never stayed overnite at hospital giving birth, always went home before 6 hours was up. WITH the newest baby. When I worked, the kids were home with husband. Except for school itself my kids had never been anywhere without me or husband. Not even for 10 minutes. I was very nervous, very scared when CPS set up wrap, sass, mentors and then when BB BS was brought up. Oh I was more than ready for even the shortest break, absolutely, but, I was so nervous. My neighbor has done in home day care since I moved here 20 years ago. She only accepts teachers children, so that she can have all school holidays off. I have reported her a couple times to CPS for awful "accidents" but, they keep on letting her continue, and what I witnes there scares me half to death. (altho it has gotten betetr the last 5 years or so) Our houses are very very close together, so I can very easily see and hear what goes on. She babysat many of my childrens teachers kids......go ahead and try to tell those parents what occurs? They do not believe, - not until it is THEIR child with an obvious injury. BUT then, by the time that happens, they usually somehow want to blame me that their kid got hurt, at my neighbors. Nevermind I warned them. But from witnessing that over 20 years (I worked nites) it scared me about ever letting someone else have one of my children.
We had one county paid respite provider put my 3 kids in the BACK of an open pick up truck and drive an hour away, to a farm her parents owned, to do CHORES. And the respite worker very often wouldnot get my kids back home on time, often 2 or more hours late, and it would cause my kids to miss doctor appts all the time. Becuz CPS ordered this respite and county was paying, my complaints went to deaf ears.
BUT it is always good to worry for your children when they are in care of someone else.
Good Luck.