Mentoring School-Age Children: Relationship Development in Community-Based and School-Based Programs (original) (raw)

Effectiveness of Mentoring Program Practices. Research in Action. Issue 2

Mentor, 2007

Last year, MENTOR released the National Agenda for Action: How to Close America's Mentoring Gap. Representing the collective wisdom of the mentoring fi eld, the Agenda articulates fi ve key strategies and action items necessary to move the fi eld forward and truly close the mentoring gap. In an effort to address one of these critical strategieselevating the role of research-MENTOR created the Research and Policy Council, an advisory group composed of the nation's leading mentoring researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. In September 2006, MENTOR convened the fi rst meeting of the Research and Policy Council with the goal of increasing the connection and exchange of ideas among practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to strengthen the practice of youth mentoring. The Research in Action series is the fi rst product to evolve from the work of the Council-taking current mentoring research and translating it into useful, user-friendly materials for mentoring practitioners.

School-Based Mentoring. Research in Action. Issue 6

2007

Last year, MENTOR released the National Agenda for Action: How to Close America's Mentoring Gap. Representing the collective wisdom of the mentoring fi eld, the Agenda articulates fi ve key strategies and action items necessary to move the fi eld forward and truly close the mentoring gap. In an effort to address one of these critical strategieselevating the role of research-MENTOR created the Research and Policy Council, an advisory group composed of the nation's leading mentoring researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. In September 2006, MENTOR convened the fi rst meeting of the Research and Policy Council with the goal of increasing the connection and exchange of ideas among practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to strengthen the practice of youth mentoring. The Research in Action series is the fi rst product to evolve from the work of the Council-taking current mentoring research and translating it into useful, user-friendly materials for mentoring practitioners.

Contemporary Issues in Mentoring

1998

This document contains six papers exploring contemporary issues in mentoring. "The Practice, Quality, and Cost of Mentoring" (Jean Baldwin Grossman) provides an introduction to and overview of the remaining five papers. "Mentoring Adolescents: What Have We Learned?" (Cynthia L. Sipe) reviews the literature on mentoring, discusses key elements in creating solid mentor-mentee relationships, and explains what is required to be an effective mentor. "Assessing the Effectiveness of Mentoring Programs" (Jean Baldwin Grossman, Amy Johnson) shares the results of a study in which the authors documented that the most effective mentoring relationships are those where mentors seek mentees' input and do not take punitive approaches to mentees. "The Cost of Mentoring" (Douglas L. Fountain, Amy Arbreton) present data demonstrating that one-on-one and group mentoring programs cost an average of

Review of Three Recent Randomized Trials of School-Based Mentoring

Social Policy Report, 2010

B etween 2007 and 2009, reports were released on the results of three separate large-scale random assignment studies of the effectiveness of schoolbased mentoring programs for youth. The studies evaluated programs implemented by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) affiliates , Communities In Schools of San Antonio, Texas , and grantees of the U.S. Department of Education's Student Mentoring Program . Differences in the findings and conclusions of the studies have led to varying responses by those in practice and policy roles. The results of the BBBSA trial led the organization to undertake an initiative to pilot and evaluate an enhanced school-based mentoring model. Findings of the Student Mentoring Program evaluation were cited as a reason for eliminating support for the program in the FY 2010 federal budget (Office of Management and Budget, 2009). In this report, we present a comparative analysis of the three studies. We identify important differences across the studies in several areas, including agency inclusion criteria, program models, implementation fidelity and support, and criteria utilized in tests of statistical significance. When aggregating results across the studies using meta-analytic techniques, we find evidence that school-based mentoring can be modestly effective for improving selected outcomes (i.e., support from non-familial adults, peer support, perceptions of scholastic efficacy, school-related misconduct, absenteeism, and truancy). Program effects are not apparent, however, for academic achievement or other outcomes. Our analysis underscores that evidence-based decision-making as applied to youth interventions should take into account multiple programmatic and methodological influences on findings and endeavor to take stock of results from the full landscape of available studies.