Effectiveness of Youth Mentoring Programs Not Always as Advertised

Youth mentoring programs have become increasingly popular in the United States -- so much so that mentoring will be a component of President Bush's USA Freedom Corps. However, according to a new University of Missouri-Columbia study, the benefits that mentoring programs advertise are not always the benefits that kids receive.

"Although these programs show promise, there is a lot of overselling when it comes to youth mentoring," said David DuBois, associate professor of psychological sciences and lead author of the study.

DuBois' research team analyzed 55 independent studies of volunteer youth mentoring programs. Overall, the researchers found only a small benefit for the average youth. Youth from backgrounds of environmental disadvantage were found to receive the most benefit from being in mentoring programs. However, they also found that poorly implemented programs could have adverse effects on at-risk youth, such as those who have experienced neglect or abuse.

"It's not realistic to think that a mentoring program can support all of a child's needs, especially if that child is vulnerable to begin with," said DuBois, who himself is a mentor for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. "We need to be sure that programs don't do more harm than good."

In addition to standard minimum requirements for mentoring programs identified in their analysis, which appeared last month in the American Journal of Community Psychology, the MU researchers also identified the following seven "best practices" that significantly enhanced program effectiveness:

* Providing defined expectations for how often mentors and youth spend time together
* Offering mentors ongoing training during relationships
* Providing periodic monitoring of the mentor/youth relationship
* Providing mentors and youth with activities to participate in together
* Supporting parental involvement
* Utilizing mentors experienced in helping roles or professions, such as teachers
* Allowing mentors and youth to interact in a range of different community settings

"Programs that implement more of these practices are notably more successful in producing desired benefits for youth, such as improvements in behavior, school performance and self esteem," DuBois said. "However, we need to remember that mentoring is only one part of the solution to a much larger challenge of helping today's youth grow into healthy and productive adults."