Making the Most of Youth Mentoring: A Guide for Funders

How should funders decide what mentoring programs to support? The mentoring field has grown and diversified immensely in recent decades. There are now thousands of mentoring programs, as well as many multi-service initiatives that incorporate elements of mentoring, across the country. Some mentoring models have been rigorously evaluated, while others have yet to be tested at scale. There is, in fact, a rich research base to draw from to determine which types of mentoring make sense for which youth, and under which circumstances. But navigating that research is a challenge for even the most determined funder, policymaker or program leader

High School Mentors In Brief: Findings from the Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study

This issue of P/PV In Brief is based on High School Students as Mentors, a report that examined the efficacy of high school mentors using data from P/PV's large-scale random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring programs. The brief presents an overview of the findings, which suggest that high school volunteers bring inherent strengths to their role as mentors but also present notable challenges for programs; implications for policy and practice are also explored

Faith in Action: Using Interfaith Coalitions to Support Voluntary Caregiving Efforts

Funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Faith in Action gives small grants to programs that provide informal care for those with chronic physical or mental disabilities. Program services are provided by volunteers, and programs are supported by coalitions involving diverse religious congregations and community-based agencies. This report presents findings from a national survey of 787 Faith in Action programs funded during the 1990s; it highlights their organizational practices, successes and challenges. It also outlines the practices linked with program survival, which include hiring directors with experience in key areas, implementing volunteer training and at least quarterly supervision, involving collaborators in fundraising and volunteer recruitment, and providing diverse services

Taking Care of Our Own: Lessons Learned About Engaging Military Families in Youth Mentoring

This report offers valuable findings from the Amachi Expansion for Military and Civilian Families (AEMCF) project, one of the first large-scale efforts to provide mentoring to military-connected children across multiple states. This report examines how AEMCF served these children and illuminates strategies for reaching and serving military-connected youth and their families more effectively

Faith in Action: Using Interfaith Coalitions to Support Voluntary Caregiving Efforts, Executive Summary

Funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Faith in Action gives small grants to programs that provide informal care for those with chronic physical or mental disabilities. Program services are provided by volunteers, and programs are supported by coalitions involving diverse religious congregations and community-based agencies. This report presents findings from a national survey of 78

Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs

Few after-school programs have developed strategies for attracting large numbers of teens, especially older and harder-to-serve youth. In response to this need, Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York City and Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston participated in a three-year initiative to enhance services to underserved teens. This report documents the successes and challenges the Clubs experienced as the initiative unfolded. They recruited large numbers of teens, involved them in a variety of activities, and provided them with emotional support, leadership opportunities, and programming in two critical areas: academics and job training

School-Based Mentoring: A First Look Into Its Potential

School-based mentoring is one of the most promising of several new mentoring approaches. This study explores some of the strengths, challenges and potential contributions of this approach by describing two well-run school-based programs. It describes characteristics of the mentors and youth involved, program practices and potential benefits to youth, and discusses implications for practitioners and directions for future research. Findings suggest that well-run school-based mentoring programs are likely to be a powerful intervention for many disadvantaged youth

Group Mentoring: A Study of Mentoring Groups in Three Programs

In an effort to provide more youth with mentors, mentoring programs are implementing several promising new approaches. This report describes the strengths and challenges of group mentoring-an approach that is gaining popularity. Findings suggest that group mentoring is reaching youth and volunteers who are unlikely to participate in traditional one-on-one mentoring, and that the approach may provide youth with important benefits, especially the development of social skills. On the other hand, mentoring groups vary widely in their size, structure and focus, and in the extent to which they foster strong mentoring relationships and benefits for youth. Implications for the mentoring field and for future research are discussed

The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles

This report presents results from the nation's first large-scale study to examine how youth's levels and sources of risk may influence their mentoring relationships and the benefits they derive from participating in mentoring programs. More and more, mentoring programs are being asked to serve young people who are considered "higher risk." And while mentoring has a strong research base generally, until now relatively little has been known about programs' capacities to serve and produce benefits for these youth.Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the study involved more than 1,300 youth, drawn from seven programs serving young people in Washington State. Oversight and support for the project were provided by Washington State Mentors. The study looked closely at the backgrounds of participating youth and their mentors, the mentoring relationships that formed, the program supports that were offered, and the benefits youth received -- and examined how these varied for youth with differing profiles (i.e., levels and types) of risk."The Role of Risk" describes the study's methods and findings and considers their implications for practitioners and funders. Overall, the study's results suggest that mentoring programs can benefit youth with a broad range of backgrounds and characteristics. The findings also highlight the importance of youth risk in shaping match experiences, and suggest that programs should do more to tailor training and support based on the specific risks youth face

School-Based Mentoring: A Closer Look

With traditional mentoring programs working hard to attract new kinds of volunteers and schools facing increased pressure to help students succeed, school-based mentoring is a promising and increasingly popular approach. According to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the number of school-based matches grew from 27,000 in 1999 to 90,000 in 2002, an increase of 233 percent. P/PV has published two previous reports on the school-based mentoring model. School-Based Mentoring: A Closer Look follows up on those earlier studies by analyzing the results of surveys we conducted with youth, mentors, teachers and case managers involved in three BBBS school-based mentoring programs. The report addresses the following questions: What are the characteristics of mentor-youth matches in school-based programs? What is the quality of th