Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study Executive Summary

Serving almost 870,000 youth nationwide, school-based mentoring is one of the fastest growing forms of mentoring in the US today. Making a Difference in Schools presents findings from a landmark random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring -- the first national study of this program model. This executive summary highlights nine key findings from the full report and outlines several recommendations for policy and practice

Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study

School-based mentoring is one of the fastest growing forms of mentoring in the US today; yet, few studies have rigorously examined its impacts. This landmark random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring is the first national study of this program model. It involves 10 agencies, 71 schools and 1,139 9- to 16-year-old youth randomly assigned to either a treatment group of program participants or a control group of their non-mentored peers. Surveys were administered to all participating youth, their teachers and mentors in the fall of 2004, spring of 2005 and late fall of 2005.The report describes the programs and their participants and answers several key questions, including: Does school-based mentoring work? What kinds of mentoring experiences help to ensure benefits? How much do these programs cost? Our findings highlight both the strengths of this program model and its current limitations and suggest several recommendations for refining this promising model-recommendations that Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies across the country are already working to implement

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

Vulnerable Youth: Federal Mentoring Programs and Issues

[Excerpt] The purpose of contemporary, structured mentoring programs is to reduce risks by supplementing (but not supplanting) a youth’s relationship with his or her parents. These programs are administered by mostly adult volunteers who are recruited by youth serving organizations, faith based organizations, schools, and after school programs. Some of these programs have broad youth development goals, while others focus more narrowly on a particular outcome such as reducing gang activity or substance abuse, or improving grades. Research has shown that mentoring programs have been associated with some positive youth outcomes, but that the long term ability of mentoring to produce particular outcomes and the ability for mentored youth to sustain gains over time are less certain. Since the mid 1990s, Congress supported mentoring programs for the most vulnerable youth. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP), the first such program, was implemented in 1994 to provide mentoring services for at risk youth ages 5 to 20. Although there is no single overarching policy today on mentoring, the federal government has supported multiple mentoring efforts for vulnerable youth since JUMP was discontinued in FY2003. Previously, two mentoring programs the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program and Safe and Drug Free Schools (SDFS) Mentoring program provided a significant source of federal funding for mentoring services. However, the programs were short lived: the MCP was administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from FY2003 through FY2011 and the SDFS program was administered by the Department of Education (ED) from FY2002 through FY2010. The federal government currently funds mentoring efforts through short term grants and initiatives, primarily carried out by DOJ. DOJ has allocated funding for multiple initiatives through its Mentoring program, including mentoring for certain vulnerable youth and research on mentoring. In addition, the federal government has provided funding to programs with vulnerable youth that have a strong, but not exclusive, mentoring component. Youth ChalleNGe, an educational and leadership program for at risk youth administered by the Department of Defense (DOD), helps to engage youth in work and school, and leadership opportunities. Adult mentors assist enrolled youth with their transition from the program for at least one year. Finally, federal agencies coordinate on mentoring issues. The Federal Mentoring Council was created in 2006 to address the ways agencies can combine resources and training and technical assistance to federally administered mentoring programs, and to serve as a clearinghouse on mentoring issues for the federal government. The council has been inactive since 2008. This report begins with an overview of the goals of mentoring, including a brief discussion on research of structured mentoring programs. The report then describes the evolution of federal policies on mentoring since the early 1990s. The report provides an overview of the federal mentoring initiatives that are currently funded. While additional federal programs and policies authorize funding for mentoring activities, among multiple other activities and services, such programs are not discussed in this report. The report concludes with an overview of issues that may be of interest to Congress. These issues include the limitations of research on outcomes for mentored youth, the quality of mentoring programs, and the potential need for additional mentors

Do School-to-Work Programs Help the “Forgotten Half�

This paper tests whether school-to-work (STW) programs are particularly beneficial for those less likely to go to college in their absence—often termed the “forgotten half†in the STW literature. The empirical analysis is based on the NLSY97, which allows us to study six types of STW programs, including job shadowing, mentoring, coop, school enterprises, tech prep, and internships / apprenticeships. For men there is quite a bit of evidence that STW program participation is particularly advantageous for those in the forgotten half. For these men, among the strongest evidence is that mentoring and coop programs increase post-secondary education, and coop, school enterprise, and internship / apprenticeship programs boost employment and decrease idleness after leaving high school. There is less evidence that STW programs are particularly beneficial in increasing schooling among women in the forgotten half, although internship / apprenticeship programs do lead to positive earnings effects concentrated among these women.

Student-adult mentoring relationships : experiences from a Scottish school-based programme

The project on which this paper is based was funded by the Academy for Educational Development (AED), now incorporated as part of the FHI Development 360 LLC (FHI 360) in Washington, DC, USA.Peer reviewedPostprin

Mentoring: Adding Value to Organizational Culture

Given that leadership is value-based and relationship-permeated, one asks how leaders can transfer personal and organizational value to employees. One answer to this is through mentoring. Mentoring young or inexperienced workers is an investment in the future of business, the school system, organizations, etc. Understanding this idea is difficult because current mentoring research demonstrates that mentoring is more convoluted than was once thought. This article will make an effort to untangle some of this research and then suggest a “common sense” and “practical” definition of “mentoring.” This is a definition that can be used in large and small businesses, in churches, schools, and by community organizations. In our conclusion, we summarize the research examined: The characteristics of a mentor The characteristics of a mentor-protégé relationship A description of the mentoring process A simple definition of “mentoring” that is widely applicabl

Do School-To-Work Programs Help the "Forgotten Half"?

This paper tests whether school-to-work (STW) programs are particularly beneficial for those less likely to go to college in their absence%u2014%u2014often termed the %u201C%u201Cforgotten half%u201D%u201D in the STW literature. The empirical analysis is based on the NLSY97, which allows us to study six types of STW programs, including job shadowing, mentoring, coop, school enterprises, tech prep, and internships/apprenticeships. For men there is quite a bit of evidence that STW program participation is particularly advantageous for those in the forgotten half. For these men, specifically, mentoring and coop programs increase post-secondary education, and coop, school enterprise, and internship/apprenticeship programs boost employment and decrease idleness after leaving high school. There is less evidence that STW programs are particularly beneficial for women in the forgotten half, although internship/apprenticeship programs do lead to positive earnings effects concentrated among these women.

High School Students as Mentors: Findings From the Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study Executive Summary

Recently, high schools have become a popular source of mentors for school-based mentoring (SBM) programs. This executive summary outlines key findings and recommendations from our High School Students as Mentors report, which drew on data from our large-scale random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters SBM (Herrera, et al. 2007). Our research indicated that, on average, high school students were much less effective than adults at yielding impacts for the youth they mentor, but it also identified several program practices that were linked with longer, stronger and more effective high school mentor relationships

Expectations of Mentoring: Novice Teachers’ Voices

Mentoring, as an avenue to support and retain new teachers, has received a renewed interest. As Trubowitz suggests, “School systems are finding that beginning teachers who have access to intensive mentoring are less likely to leave teaching” (2004, p. 59). While several factors may cause teachers to leave, alienation has been identified as one of the major forces. According to previous research, teachers experience “a combination of feelings of isolation, normlessness, powerlessness, and meaninglessness” (Benham & O’Brien, 2002, p. 20). Such feelings of isolation are compounded by the current accountability demands and the professional pressure teachers’ experience. Thus, it is imperative to consider alternative strategies aimed at providing the kind of support congruent with beginning teacher’s needs in order to be successful (Breaux & Wong, 2003, p. iii). A goal of such strategies should be the effective socialization of teachers, and providing on-going support for growth, through different approaches including mentoring (Darling-Hammond, 2003; Brennan, Thames, & Roberts, 1999). Although mentoring can be an effective means to enhance teacher efficacy and help beginning teachers (Breaux & Wong, 2003; Delgado, 1999; Yost, 2002), limited research focuses on teachers’ perspectives associated with their own expectations of mentoring, particularly in diverse school settings (Wang & Odell, 2002). Further, researchers suggest, “There has been limited evidence that points to the expectations of new teachers relative to mentoring” (Tillman, 2005, p. 616). Thus, it is essential that teachers’ voices be illuminated to better understand their needs so that school leaders may “consider the benefits of consulting with novice teachers about their expectations in the mentoring arrangement” (Tillman, 2005, p. 626). Much of the current literature on teacher mentoring is based on experiences of mentors (Ganser, 1996; Trubowitz, 2004), and mentoring internship program descriptions (Brennan, Thames, & Roberts, 1999) however, novice teachers’ voices tend to be absent from the discourse. While few studies have focused on teachers’ perceptions (Rowley, 1999; Olebe, Jackson, & Danielson, 1999), additional research is needed so that beginning teachers’ voices contribute to a better understanding of mentoring as a vehicle to reduce isolation, successfully socialize new teachers into the demands of the profession, provide culturally responsive support to novice teachers, and reduce teacher turnover. Such inquiry could also be useful to avoid the common pitfalls that might have a detrimental effect on teachers and students. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study conducted to examine teachers’ expectations of mentoring