Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego County

Tina R., what does that even mean?
Did you type out speaking points and paste them on every criticism that you received? That’s awesome! (He said with heavy sarcasm.)
This is what I mean. How can your organization match people adequately based on personality if you don’t even take the time to personally respond to criticisms?

I’ve worked with kids since my college days in various roles, including youth ministry, educational and nature summer camps, and K-​8 teaching. I’ve always been successful in these endeavors. In addition to enjoying working with kids, I enjoy family friendly activities such as water and theme parks, movies, watching a sporting event, museums, laser tag, what have you. Since I have not been blessed with kids of my own, am financially secure, have time available, and have been recommended to BBBS by three unrelated people, including two that work for different BBBS organizations, I thought this would be an ideal organization to work with to positively impact the life of a child.
I am not a creative writer and there is no way for me to express how I felt after having an interview with BBBS. The whole thing was an absolute mess, but I’ll try to point out some things.
The worst part was spending more than an hour delving into my personal life and asking about my relationships all the way back to my high school days (over 25 years ago!), including asking about how far or deep did the relationship go, why we were no longer together, and how we broke up. During the conversation, the interviewer really made me feel like I was a complete failure in relationships as I’ve never had a super long term relationship nor am married and therefore I must be a terrible person. They also asked if I could provide contact information for these people, as if I keep in touch with high school and college girlfriends. This was, by far, the worst part of the interview and I felt it to be extremely invasive.
Due to the overly intrusive nature of the interview, I informed them right away that I was no longer interested.
While not as bad, and less intrusive, they also asked about my employment history all the way back to my high school days, and again, asking if they could contact them for references. So, even though I had already provided five references, they were asking for more from previous relationships and previous employment. Needless to say, I don’t keep contact information of all my relationships and workplace experience going back to high school. Speaking of references, the application requires three references, but they wouldn’t even talk to me until I provided five, including one from my mother or father. What?!
Reading over what I have just written, it seems somewhat benign, but in actuality, it completely fails to capture what I experienced or how I felt. I don’t think I ever felt so invaded in my life and made to feel horrible about my interests and past. I’m sure Bill’s review is right, they just want to make sure they are getting good people, and that’s a good thing. But, I think they should re-​evaluate how they go about doing so. My teaching jobs and summer camp jobs all had very thorough background checks (fingerprinting, FBI, DOJ, and references) and interviews, but they never were invasive about my private life. Once leaving the interview, I went to my car and just sat there completely frustrated and flabbergasted at the experience. The next day at work I spoke to my co-​workers about the experience and they too were dumbfounded.
Despite informing them right away that I was no longer interested, they took my application fee and ran a hard credit pull on me anyway (I don’t recall ever giving them permission to do a credit check, but maybe something I signed allowed it). I have to assume they also pulled my Lexis-​Nexis record and looked at my social media accounts, as they indicated they would, but there is no way to verify this. They had no follow-​up as to why I was no longer interested so they evidently don’t have any interest in feedback on how to improve.

So glad to be a part of this organization. I was matched with a little sister for a year. It was a fun experience for the both of us.
Its great to be a role model, go to person or simply have someone to do actitivties with — to keep them away from the streets and teach them the importance things in life.
Its interesting to learn, hear and see what girls learn and know in school and the outside world. They’re very active and up to date with what goes on in the world. We had intelligent conversations. It was fun.
The BBBS also offered padre games tickets, nutcracker play, bowling tickets and all kinds of events.
So many kids out there w/​o anyone to look up to or maybe not getting the attention they need at home. this program is beneficial for everyone.
I hope you find interest in signing up for the BBBS, its free! its only a couple hours a month so spend with a little or a big. You can even change one’s life.
I look forward to my new match this year :)

I’ve been a Big for about 6 months. Great organization and the experience has been everything I hoped it would. It’s a great well thought out system and they made the experience easy and comfortable. I’m proud to be a Big and part of the organization.

I had to comment here and write this review in light of what was written by Mason W.
I currently have the pleasure of serving as a Big Brother for BBBS SD, and I have had an outstanding experience with the program. I was first referred to BBBS by a friend who also serves as a «Big» in the program, and she had a great experience as well. It’s true that there is a very thorough screening process, and during this process the interviewing personnel take a very serious tone. This is for obvious reasons: they want to do everything within their power to ensure the safety and well-​being of the little brothers and sisters in the program. In the future, I would hope any person entrusted with my child would be equally scrutinized and investigated.
When I went through the background check and initial interview, it was a very long one-​on-​one question and answer session that felt much like an interrogation. I can guess that, as stated above, this is to ensure they get a forthright and clear representation of your background and psychological state. Part of me, however, believes that there is another reason for this type of long interview (although I can’t say for sure). I believe they want to ensure that any person who signs up for the program is seriously committed to it and will not give up simply because things start to get tough or uncomfortable. It’s likely that some of the «Littles» in the program have dealt with some type of abandonment issue or another, and the last thing they need is to be abandoned by someone else who has pledged to be their friend and confidant. Moreover, «Bigs» may be assigned to «Littles» with some history of social or behavioral issues, so it’s no surprise that the interviewing personnel wants to see how a prospective «Big» reacts to awkward, adversarial, or high pressure situations.
It’s true I was somewhat uncomfortable during the initial interview, but I was not entering the program for the benefit of the interviewing personnel. I entered the program because I thought it would be a great opportunity to get out of the house and socialize with a great kid (or young adult) who, in turn, might also benefit by having someone to talk to or just spend recreational time with. Even after the interview process it took about a year to find a match for me. This goes to show how seriously BBBS of San Diego takes their job of finding the right Big for the right Little. The program doesn’t help anyone if either of the parties are mismatched and/​or do not want to participate. When they eventually did find my match, I couldn’t believe what a great job they had done. My Little was (and is) an awesome person!
I’m happy to say that my first Little recently turned 18 years old. I consider myself very lucky to have been matched with such a great young adult. I have BBBS to thank for this. I know that sometimes people do get turned away from the program (a friend of mine, in fact, did not get in, and she happens to be one of the sweetest and most honest people I know). It doesn’t make you a bad person if you are not asked to be part of the program. It is very likely, however, that they have some valid reason for doing so. Being excluded from the program or being highly scrutinized by the interviewing personnel should not be an excuse to speak ill of the program itself. BBBS of SD does a lot of good in San Diego. So if you’re thinking about writing a negative review about this organization because you weren’t accepted into the program, or because you had to undergo a highly scrutinizing (yet reasonable) initial process, please think about who you’re ultimately hurting. I encourage all people to find out how they and/​or their kids can become involved in this great program.