"I will usually tell my mentor, 'Oh, my God, I feel so bad about this and that.' And then we would talk about it for a little while and then she'll make me feel better. She'll say, 'You're not going to end up like (one of the agency's clients). You have a great future. She would say positive things about me that'll (make) me even do more good work, positive things, that I could accomplish anything I want because she sees the effort that I do in school and in my internship. She sees the skills that I have."

"The first young man I worked with came in and he was very, very shy and very quiet, very reserved, very nervous. We actually had to sit down and talk one day because it was getting to the point where he was so afraid of doing anything that he was making a lot of mistakes because he was worried all the time. And we had to sit down. I said, 'This is about you and it appears to me that you don't feel at times that you're equal to anybody here. You need to get over that, because you are no better and you are no worse than anybody else that is here. And until you believe that it's going to continue affecting how you do your job.' And he got it. It changed."

"She always gave me things that I first thought were so difficult to complete. But afterwards I would feel good about myself, because she actually helped me out and made me feel like I can do it. Maybe at the moment it felt a little overwhelming, but I knew that I had to push myself to do it. She was always there to tell me, just to encourage me. She always had these high expectations of her work, to give the best. So, it's just something that you just learn from being with her. Something that she projects onto others."

"The first time we took her to break, she hardly talked at all. So a couple of the guys here went with us to break and they just started to really cut-up one another. I mean, the guy was sitting right there, but he would make a comment, and she was just so taken aback, and I of course was crying , laughing, because I know that this guy is just that kind of tease. His attitude is you should never be too serious in the office. And it was just the most wonderful thing, because from that point on, every time she'd see him, she'd say something about that. It was just a total turn-around. All of a sudden she felt like, 'Well this isn't so bad. These people aren't so serious. I can mess up once and it's not going to be the end of the world.' I think that's important. You have to realize that a mistake is a learning in disguise, and that's what she was doing. She was learning how to cope with stress or whatever. That's how we do it, we just laugh."

One youth explained: "The comfort zone is like when you're staying in one spot and you're scared to go and reach out for anything farther because of fear of some kind. And I've learned to step out of my fear zone because I have interacted far beyond people in my work place. I've talked with (clients) on the phone. I've talked with them and it's really gotten me comfortable."

"I wasn't really outgoing towards asking people how things worked, just because I didn't know their personality, but (my mentor said) 'If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.' So now I feel that I could do that with anybody. I wouldn't always ask my teacher for help, which you should do. I wasn't outgoing toward the teacher. I would try to find the problem myself, and if I couldn't I'd give up. After my first year (on the job) I was more comfortable asking people for help and I would go to the teacher and I would tell the problem, (what) the situation is, tell him I was stuck on it, I can't find it. 'Can you give me a hint or help me out a bit?' And he was always more than happy to do that. So (self-confidence) helped me out in school, not just work. I felt more confident in what I was doing, more confident doing the job."

"When she was here as an intern she was in the ninth grade and one year older than our oldest group. Even though she had no prior work history, I thought she could immediately come in and be an expert on being a kid. Essentially I wanted to immediately empower her with some competence that she could begin to build some confidence at a task."