Blackburn Mentoring serves Cleveland and Northeast Ohio by video. Our team is in Los Angeles, and clients on the East Side in Shaker Heights, Chagrin Falls, Solon and Hudson, and on the West Side in Rocky River, Bay Village and Westlake, meet one dedicated mentor online each week, scheduled in Eastern time. We work with high school students and their parents, college students, young adults and professionals.
East Side, West Side, and the lake
Ask anyone in Cleveland where they are from and you will hear East Side or West Side before a suburb name. The two halves of the metro have different feels, different commutes and their own traditions, but they share Lake Erie, long winters and a strong attachment to the city. Families here often stay for generations, which means grandparents nearby and a lot of opinions about how a teenager should spend a Saturday.
Northeast Ohio has a long tradition of independent schools, including single-sex schools on both sides of town, alongside well-regarded public districts. Health care is now the region’s biggest employer, with world-renowned hospital systems, and manufacturing, engineering, banking and law are still major parts of the economy.
Winter is the real test
Cleveland winters are long, gray and, east of the city in the snow belt, very snowy. That matters more than it sounds. Students lose daylight, practices move indoors, and the stretch from January to March is when routines quietly fall apart and grades follow. Many of our families find that the most useful months for a weekly mentor are exactly the ones when everyone is stuck inside.
- Build a homework routine that does not depend on mood or weather.
- Keep a sleep schedule through the dark months.
- Plan exercise that works indoors, so it does not disappear until spring.
- Use winter break to reset, not to fall further behind.
Our guides on building a daily routine and teen sleep and school have more detail.
Students who left, and students who came back
A lot of Cleveland students go away to college, often out of state, and some come home sooner than planned. Others are at the colleges and universities in the area, including the institutions around University Circle, and live at home or close by. Either way, the transition is where many struggles begin. A mentor works with the student by video wherever they are, helps them set a weekly plan for classes and life, and, with permission, keeps parents in the loop. See college transition mentoring and taking a leave of absence from college.
Young adults building a life in Northeast Ohio
Cleveland is an affordable place to start out, and many young adults stay or come back for jobs in health care, finance, law and engineering. Neighborhoods like Ohio City, Tremont and Lakewood draw recent graduates. The questions are usually practical: how to grow in a first job, whether to go back to school, how to save for a house, how to stop drifting. Mentors help break those into weekly steps. See young adults feeling stuck.
Session times
Cleveland is on Eastern time, three hours ahead of Los Angeles. A 4 pm session after school is 1 pm for the mentor; evening sessions for working adults are easy to place. On a snow day, a video session is one thing that does not get canceled. We always schedule in your local time.
Where a mentor helps
A mentor is a steady outside adult who meets every week, keeps the plan honest and shares progress with permission. That is different from tutoring, therapy or admissions advice, and it works alongside any of them. Families with teens usually start with mentoring for high school students. For more on how video sessions work, see our online mentoring page.
Related
- Online mentoring in Pittsburgh
- Online mentoring in Columbus
- Mentoring for families
- Helping a struggling college student
Common questions
Do you have mentors in Cleveland?
Our team is based in Los Angeles. Cleveland clients meet their mentor by video, with text and phone check-ins between sessions.
Do you work with families on both the East Side and West Side?
Yes. Anyone in Northeast Ohio, or anywhere in the United States, can work with us online, with sessions in local time.
My child came home from college. Can a mentor help?
Yes. Mentors often work with students home for a semester or longer, helping set a plan for work, classes or a return to school, with parents updated as agreed.
Get started
Thinking about a mentor for someone in Northeast Ohio? Call (888) 305 5422, email contact@blackburnmentoring.com or start with a short assessment. A member of our team reviews every assessment personally and sets up a free intro call.