Youth Mentoring Research Articles

Big Brothers Big Sisters comes to Ireland: A case study in policy transfer

Abstract Over the past decade, formal youth mentoring programmes have been adopted in many countries but there has been relatively little attention in the mentoring literature to the processes by which mentoring models developed in the USA have become embedded in these new policy environments. Using a conceptual framework from the policy transfer literature (Evans, 2009) which identifies obstacles to the successful transfer of policy models, this paper analyses the processes by which the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) youth mentoring programme was introduced to and became accepted in Ireland. Firstly, it is argued that that the decisions made by the host organisation, Foroige prior to the introduction of the BBBS programme to Ireland had a critical influence on the degree to which mentoring became established in Ireland and whether or not it would be ‘culturally accepted’. In particular, the approach of emulation rather than copying of the original BBBS model was an effective one. Secondly, the mentoring model is seen to fit well with Irish policy relating to children and young people. Thirdly, embedding the BBBS model within an established community based youth organisation helped to overcome any potential cultural issues that may have arisen from ‘importing’ a model developed in a country with a strong cultural tradition of formal mentoring to one where such a tradition does not exist. Finally, the new policy model was found to be feasible to implement. These four factors helped to ensure that the BBBS programme became successfully established in an Irish policy context. It is argued that the policy transfer literature can enhance our understanding of why formal mentoring models succeed or fail in new policy environments.

Omar Ghannoum: an irresistible force for change

Omar Ghannoum: an irresistible force for change

Presidential Address

During his travels through the United States in the early-nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville, in his reflections on civil society and attempts to capture the essence of its culture and values, famously noted the American spirit of voluntary cooperation. At a time when the national government was truly small, Tocqueville (1899) observed that, “When an American asks for the co-operation of his fellow-citizens, it is seldom refused, and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously andwith great goodwill . . . The Americans, who are always cold and often coarse in their manners, seldom show insensibility; and if they do not proffer services eagerly, yet they do not refuse to render them” (p. 185). Due largely to the economic crisis of the Great Recession that began in late 2007 and whose effects continue to the present day, we are currently witnessing deep cutbacks in social services and staunch opposition to tax increases (National Public Radio 2011; Rasmussen Reports 2011). As a consequence, it is no longer tenable to believe that themost creative solutions to society’s most vexing problems will come from government programs. Obviously the state has a duty to play a major role in addressing societal issues on a large scale, particularly in the areas of public safety, public health, and unemployment. But given today’s strained political and economic climate, nongovernmental voluntary effort is clearly the more reasonable and sensible strategy to take. The fact is that there are currently tens of thousands of citizens involved in voluntary community service throughout the country (Corporation for National and Community Service 2011). Indeed, the national volunteer rate in 2010 was 26 percent, with nearly 63 million volunteers serving. These volunteers dedicated over 8 billion hours to volunteer service, and the economic value of this service was almost $173 billion (Corporation for National and Community Service 2011). What is more, no less than 26 percent of college students volunteered in 2010, and over 3 million of them dedicated over 300 million hours of service to communities across the country, primarily in activities involving youth mentoring, fundraising, and teaching and tutoring (Corporation for National and Community Service 2011). This service work is being done by many ordinary people who are picking up the slack for a city, a state, a nation unwilling or unable to attend to many critical matters that directly affect thousands, even millions, of people (Coles 1993). I contend that we have now entered a new era in this country, one characterized by a culture of service—involving various forms of civic engagement, community service, and volunteerism— that allows people, as citizens, to work together to ease or mitigate the predicaments and uncertainties created by poverty, hunger, racism, sexism, epidemics, calamities, and so on.

An evaluation of factors leading to mentor satisfaction with the mentoring relationship

Abstract This study assessed factors related to mentor satisfaction. Eighty-one youth mentors were surveyed to evaluate the effect of training, agency support, and confidence on mentor satisfaction. Linear regressions showed that greater perceived training and confidence significantly predicted greater mentor satisfaction within the mentoring relationship, and agency support marginally supported this relationship. These findings show the need for agencies to provide initial training, ongoing support, and to ensure their mentors are confident in their abilities as a mentor to guarantee that their mentors are satisfied in their relationships, perhaps making them more likely to continue mentoring. Participant comments provide support for specific suggestions for mentoring programs.

Teachers as mentors: models for promoting achievement with disadvantaged and underrepresented students by creating community

The book describes two similar and successful models of youth mentoring used by two acclaimed urban high schools that have consistently achieved exceptional graduation rates. Providing a detailed description of their methods based upon extensive observation, and interviews with teachers, students, administrators, and parents this book makes a major contribution to the debate on how to reduce the achievement gap.Using similar teacher-as-youth mentor and youth advising models, these two inner city schools Fenway High School in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Kedma School in Jerusalem have broken the cycle of failure for the student populations they serve children from underrepresented groups living in poverty in troubled neighborhoods with few resources. Students in both schools have excelled academically, rarely dropout, and progress to college in significant numbers (Fenway has 90% graduation rate, with 95% of graduates going on to college. Kedma outperforms comparable urban schools by a factor of four). Both schools have won numerous awards, with Fenway High School gaining Pilot School status in Massachusetts, a recognition the state only awards to a few exemplary schools; and Kedma School being declared one of the 50 most influential educational endeavors in Israel.The success of both schools is directly attributable to their highly developed teacher-as-a-youth mentor programs that embody an ideology and mission that put students at the center of their programs and structures. The models are closely integrated with the curriculum, and support the social, emotional, cultural, and academic needs of students, as well as develop close mentor-student-parent relationships. The model furthermore includes extensive support for the mentors themselves. Apart from the potential of these models to narrow the achievement gap, these two schools have a record of creating a school climate that promotes safety, and reduces the incidence of bullying and violence. At the heart of both programs is creating community between departments and functions in the school; and between teachers, staff, students, and parents. Everyone in the school system should read this book.Research suggests that caring relationships between students and teachers significantly enhance Social Emotional Learning (SEL) -- defined as the process through which children develop their ability to integrate thinking, feeling, and behaving to achieve important life tasks -- which is recognized as an important factor in children's success in school. However, caring schools are usually the exception, especially at the secondary level where relationships between students and teachers seem to deteriorate significantly. This book provides a schoolwide model for establishing caring secondary schools and enhancing SEL using a teacher-as-a youth mentor model.

The role of mentoring in youth development

There is an opinion that natural youth mentoring has a favourable impact on psychosocial development and that it is correlated with better success later on life. This research purports to reveal which personality features of mentors and prot?g?s figure as necessary conditions for development of youth mentoring process, which leads towards positive developmental outcomes. The questionnaire created specifically for the purposes of this study was administered to the convenient sample of primary and secondary school students (77) and university students from Belgrade (109). Respondents assessed the features of a significant person from their life through 17 sentences, the changes occurring due to experience with a significant person through 18 sentences, and one?s own features through 16 sentences. Factor analysis extracted two features of significant persons (labelled M-basic support and M-expert), two kinds of outcomes of experience with significant persons (P-self-improvement and P-self-distance) and two types of features in respondents (Openness towards learning and Relying on others). Analyses indicate that establishment of a relationship of truth and exchange, providing the feeling of basic support to prot?g?s, is a conditio sine qua non in mentoring, while competence and professionalism of the mentor figure as differentia specifica in mentoring. In order for such a relationship to be established, it is necessary for mentors to have personality features that are a precondition for establishing the basic support for prot?g?s, and for prot?g?s to be open towards learning and ready to find a support in mentors.

Examining the Cultural Context of Youth Mentoring: A Systematic Review

While research in youth mentoring is extensive in the U.S., little research has explored its effectiveness in New Zealand, despite its growth in the past 20years. While arguments have been raised that overseas models may not fit all cultural contexts within New Zealand, there appears to be limited evidence supporting this contention. Further, little is known about associations between effectiveness and the cultural appropriateness of programs and research. This systematic review of youth mentoring programs in New Zealand is based on 26 studies that met inclusion criteria. Of those, 14 had a significant proportion (15% or more) of indigenous Māori youth and six had a significant proportion of Pasifika (Pacific Islander) youth. While almost all programs and associated research were culturally appropriate to the overall New Zealand context, they tended to be less culturally appropriate for programs working with Māori and Pasifika youth. Further, there was a negative association between cultural appropriateness and program effectiveness.

Youth Mentoring: New Areas for Research

Youth Mentoring: New Areas for Research

Innovation in Collaboration: The Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring as a university-community partnership

The Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring (SIYM) at Portland State University is an intensive week-long seminar designed to offer a highly interactive educational opportunity for experienced professionals and leading researchers in the field of youth mentoring. The current study explores the extent to which SIYM represents an example of a successful university-community partnership and identifies ways in which SIYM innovates on established partnership models. Using grounded theory methods and typological analysis, the researchers analysed questionnaire responses from SIYM participants and research fellows to compare key characteristics of SIYM with the elements of effective partnerships described in the literature. Findings suggest that SIYM reflects many essential partnership qualities, including the presence of a shared vision; strong, mutually beneficial relationships; and a partnering process that includes communication and work for positive change. SIYM also introduces several innovations in format and structure that could inform the improvement or development of effective partnership efforts across disciplines. Implications for service providers, researchers and other stakeholders are discussed.
 
 Keywords
 communication, collaboration, mutually beneficial relationships, innovation

Community Perspectives on Barriers and Strategies for Promoting Locally Grown Produce From an Urban Agriculture Farm

Although much is understood about barriers to healthy food consumption in low-income, urban communities, knowledge regarding the crucial next step of building feasible, community-supported approaches to address those barriers remains limited. This qualitative study used in-depth interviews (n = 20), focus groups (n = 2), and participant observations (n = 3) to identify strategies to promote locally grown produce from an urban food security project, Produce From the Park (PFP), an urban farm. Informants included community organization representatives and residents from low-income neighborhoods in a mid-Atlantic city. Informants identified structural and cultural barriers to purchasing healthy food, including price, location, food culture, and lack of interest. Participants proposed a number of strategies, such as distribution through mobile food carts and farm stands, marketing new foods through taste tests and cooking demonstrations, and youth mentorship. Informants also described their perceptions of the local urban farm and suggested ways to increase community buy-in. Strategies mentioned were inexpensive and incorporated cultural norms and local assets. These community perspectives can provide insights for those promoting healthy eating in urban African American communities through urban food security projects.

Increasing opportunities for inner-city youth: The feasibility of an economic empowerment model in East Harlem and the South Bronx, New York

Youth of color are disproportionately likely to grow-up in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods characterized by high levels of psychosocial stressors and inadequate supportive resources. Poverty and racial minority status correlate with an increased risk of high-school dropout, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Given these trends, child welfare researchers are developing various interventions to increase the protective resources and social opportunities available to youth of color. This article reports results of a preliminary, qualitative study that investigated the feasibility and acceptability of an economic empowerment intervention in the South Bronx and East Harlem, New York. Using focus groups and brief questionnaires with youth and their parents/guardians (N=24 dyads), we explored attitudes toward youth educational savings accounts, financial planning classes, and mentorship for inner-city youth. Findings indicate a strong interest in an economic empowerment intervention among adolescents and their caregivers in these communities. These findings have implications for the design of larger-scale research programs that aim to improve inner-city youth's socio-economic wellbeing using economic empowerment models.

About U th Ink

U th Ink has professional playwrights and arts facilitators mentor youth in writing, reciting and recording their own short play about a physical space in their community. Here ROBIN SOKOLOSKI presents a photo essay that offers local U th Ink sites with links to online recordings of the plays inspired by those sites.

Youth Mentoring: Involving College Students

Today’s youth are facing a number of troubling issues including substance abuse, family disturbances, bullying, low morale resulting in low academic achievement, dropping out of school, and more. Having someone who cares about youth, to talk to them about the issues they face and mentoring them, can be a positive factor for all involved. This 3-page fact sheet was written by Emily Rickerson, Muthusami Kumaran, and Kate Fogarty about a collegiate mentor service learning program at the University of Florida., and published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, August 2011. (Photo © C.A.M.P. Gator)

Constructing a global understanding of the social ecology of leaving out of home care

Engagement with globalisation is growing in the field of youth transitions from out of home care. This includes cross national exchange of research, policy and practise, regional advocacy networking and global policy development. Furthering this emerging international child welfare perspective requires extending it to countries in the developing world and building conceptual frameworks which encompass a social ecology of care leaving, including its global dimension, the latter needs to address not only the needs, expectations and rights of care leavers but also the theories of change underpinning service design and delivery. Such a model is presented combining resilience and social capital as personal assets situated within a social ecology of support. To illustrate how this provides a means to help engage with the experience of countries where there appears to be very little information available on care leaving, a small scale South African initiative is considered. SA-YES is a youth mentoring project for young people leaving a variety of out of home placements. Planned as a three-year pilot, initial results are encouraging but require more rigorous evaluation focusing on program process and outcomes, quality of interpersonal relationships and synchronisation with cultural expectations and policy environment. ► Understanding youth transitions from out of home care must include developing countries. ► A model is presented to facilitate this global integration. ► The model combines resilience and social capital within a social ecology of support. ► Use of the model is illustrated by a South African youth mentoring scheme for care leavers.

Randomized evaluation of a single semester transitional mentoring program for first year middle school students: a cautionary result for brief, school-based mentoring programs

School-based youth mentoring is popular in the United States. There are reasons to believe that school-based mentoring might be beneficial, but research has found primarily small effects and some negative effects. This study describes a formal evaluation of a single semester mentoring program that was implemented within the context of a school-university-community partnership. Middle school students were randomly assigned to a school-based mentoring program (n=60) or a control group (n=60) during the first semester of middle school. Results suggest that random assignment to the mentoring program designed to ease the transition to middle school was associated with statistically significant decreases in reading grades and null effects on other measures, including school and teacher connectedness. These results reinforce the need to evaluate mentoring programs on a case-by-case basis and continue to innovate in the area of school-based mentoring until robust, replicable evidence-based procedures are identified. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Labor Unions and Charity

Drawing on two independent datasets, the author examines organized labor's role as a benefactor for community-based charity. A population-level analysis of Michigan data indicates that union member density and union local density are positively associated with per capita donations to regional United Ways. An individual-level analysis of CPS data corroborates the Michigan findings, and in addition reveals that unionists are more likely than non-unionists to be engaged in community affairs and volunteer for charitable organizations. Unionists disproportionately volunteer to provide medical care, fire/EMS, or protective services; collect and distribute clothing, crafts, or nonfood goods; coach or referee sports; volunteer in music or other arts; tutor or teach; and mentor youth. The findings suggest that unions function in part as vehicles for collectivizing asset and volunteer resources among their members for redistribution to community-based charitable causes, thereby reducing social inequity.

Working to make it work: the role of parents in the youth mentoring process

AbstractTheoretical and empirical work on youth mentoring relationships has been largely focused on the mentor‐youth dyad, with little attention to the larger context within which such relationships form and develop. The perspectives of parents have been absent for the most part from the mentoring literature to date. In‐depth, semistructured, qualitative interviews were conducted with parents (n=13) of youth who were participating in a community‐based mentoring program. Four major themes were identified: parents' (a) hopes and expectations for the mentoring relationship, (b) trust in the mentor and satisfaction with the relationship, (c) roles in the mentoring relationship, and (d) reflections on and experiences with cultural differences between their child and the mentor. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Best Practices in School-Based Mentoring Programs for Adolescents

Mentoring is a promising approach to promote healthy development and prevent poor youth outcomes; however, bad mentoring experiences have yielded negative results. Thus, it is critical that youth service providers take heed of the current research and resources for establishing an effective youth mentoring program. Given the increased interest in school-based mentoring programs, presented herein are best practices in developing, implementing, and evaluating a school-based mentoring program for adolescents. Program development strategies are provided around laying the groundwork, establishing partnerships, and coordinating the program. The elements of effective practice for mentoring (MENTOR, 2009) are summarized and additional implementation considerations are presented. Lastly, the realities of program evaluation are discussed in juxtaposition to program evaluation standards.

The development of a youth mentoring program in the south of India

This article illustrates the challenges and opportunities involved as a US-based research team assists in the development of a culturally-informed youth mentoring program in rural India. Based on data from youth and adult stakeholders, a mentoring curriculum was developed and piloted. Lessons learned illuminate how context influences youth development programs and conceptualization of mentoring relationships. Implications for similar international initiatives are discussed.

Acculturation, distress disclosure, and emotional self-disclosure within Asian populations.

Research into youth mentoring suggests that programs focused on specific practices (e.g., emotional disclosure and collaborative relationships) increase the likelihood of a successful mentoring relationship, factors similar to the psychotherapy literature. However, research into psychotherapy with Asians has indicated that these factors, based on Western values, are less effective, especially with those who are less acculturated. To test the relevance of these factors within mentor-type relationships, this study examined the relationship between acculturation and distress disclosure, and the relationship between acculturation and the retrospective willingness to emotionally self-disclose to friends and unrelated, trusted adults in 98 participants representing several ethnic Asian backgrounds. Both values-based and behaviorally based acculturation measures were used. Values-based, but not behaviorally based acculturation, predicted distress disclosure (i.e., less acculturated individuals were less likely to disclose distress). Using an imagery protocol, participants were then asked to think back to adolescence and indicate their willingness to self-disclose emotions to friends and unrelated, trusted adults. Participants were more willing to self-disclose emotions to friends compared to unrelated, trusted adults, regardless of values acculturation level. However, a significant interaction occurred in an unanticipated direction using behaviorally based acculturation. Less behaviorally acculturated individuals were more willing to disclose emotions to unrelated, trusted adults compared to more behaviorally acculturated individuals. Discussion regarding the results revolved around the utility of a behavioral measure of acculturation, values and behaviors in acculturation, the role of older persons in Asian culture, and the possible role of community in the acculturation process.