Within an internet full of valuable research, inspiring insights and distracting clutter, solutions await you here in the Center for Youth Mentoring@100%. Your introduction to the issues here in the “Center’s Main Hall” will guide you to what we call our ten “Innovation Areas” where action team projects await your review and engagement.

What the Center for Youth Mentoring@100% provides you with are the strategies to ensure, county by county, that systems of youth mentor supports are working effectively to serve all youth. We live in a time of vast knowledge regarding innovations in face-to-face and online mentorship, where the only reason for young people going without easy access to a mentor in your locality is manmade. The human ingenuity you discover here can ensure that 100% survive and thrive.

“A wise and trusted counselor or teacher” is one way to look at the role of a youth mentor. Mentorship can be described as a partnership between people with different life experiences who seek to understand one another. The mentor’s job is supporting the healthy choices a mentee can make in order for him or her to succeed with school, family life, and the formation of a plan for the future.

In the Center for Youth Mentoring@100% we take on a very complicated system with its numerous challenges. We provide an overview of mentoring and mentor systems with all its solvable problems. Get ready to be overwhelmed and also inspired. We will guide you through all the steps to put ideas into action.

In many ways, the experience of mentoring benefits both the mentor and the mentee. A mentor may have more experience and knowledge to share with a younger person, yet a mentee may be able to share with the older person another way of looking at life, through the lens of youth. It could be said that a 14-year-old and a 50-year-old may exist in parallel worlds, yet the mentor/mentee relationships create a unique bond and bridge between two realities, often separated by decades of life experience. For those youth coming from households and communities with few resources, the mentor may be able to introduce the mentee to new insights and possibilities.

“Why are mentors needed? Don’t kids already have them with their families”?

Mentoring has the capacity to transfer knowledge, practical life skills and emotional support. For example, a mentee’s family may not have anyone who graduated from college and therefore might not consider it. A mentor, with the right experience or insights, can introduce a mentee to the value of education in the form of an apprenticeship, vocational ed or higher ed.

There are many forms of mentoring relationships, including those that are based in school, the community or online. We are focused on formal one-on-one mentoring relationships that are structured by organizations with clear guidelines, protocols and boundaries to ensure the safety of the mentee.

What do the data tell us about mentoring?

Some might say that the gold standard in mentoring is Big Brothers Big Sisters, in that they have the most research behind their unique form of mentoring. Potential mentors are screened and receive a background check. Training on youth development is also provided. Once matched, a case worker checks with the mentor, mentee and mentee’s parent. Mentors are asked to make a minimum of a one-year commitment and visit with the child or youth at least twice a month.

Public/Private Ventures, an independent Philadelphia-based national research organization, conducted a study from 1994–95 monitoring 950 boys and girls nationwide to study the effects of Big Brothers Big Sisters. Out of the 950 children, half were randomly chosen to be matched, and the others were put on a waiting list. According to the study, the matched children met with their Big Brother or Sister about three times a month for a year.

After surveying the children at the beginning of the study and again after 18 months, the researchers found that the Little Brothers and Little Sisters, compared to those children not in the program, were:

46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs
27% less likely to begin using alcohol
52% less likely to skip school
37% less likely to skip a class
33% less likely to hit someone

They also found that the Littles (mentees) were more confident about their performance in schoolwork and got along better with their families.

We’re huge fans of the Big Brothers Big Sisters model (full disclosure, co-author Cappello volunteered as a “Big” — also known as a mentor — for Big Brothers Big Sisters for two years) and would like to see a robust program in every county in the nation. We also acknowledge other forms of mentoring that could be quite effective, and we share models in this chapter. As with all our ten service sectors, we envision a seamless and collaborative system of youth mentoring with one goal: every child who would benefit from a mentor gets one.

About web-based and blended mentoring

Blended mentoring is using information technology (IT) to enhance traditional mentoring programs. It is a brave new world, with a lot of bugs to be worked out. Yet there is also much promise, if we can test and evaluate different web-based models. Some of this type of web-based mentoring could be designed for young adults seeking career counseling or life path options.

Blended mentoring might be a model where a mentee meets a mentor one time, then switches over to web-based mentoring for a mutually agreed upon length of time, with clear objectives and goals.

Web-based mentoring is all online, following the same guidelines as blended mentoring. Technology gives us the opportunity to enlarge mentoring options — safely and with evaluation — to adapt to the changing times.

By incorporating Information Technology solutions (IT) with the traditional mentoring method, students may be able to benefit from the technologies of e-mentoring while also receiving direct and personal attention from the traditional method.

Who could benefit from a mentor?

What do we know about how mentorship can help different types of families. Research noted in “The Mentoring Effect: Young People’s Perspectives on the Outcomes and Availability of Mentoring” (2014) and “The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles” (2013) suggests that mentors have a powerful positive effect on young people as they grow. Mentoring guarantees that mentees have an adult who cares about them, guides them and helps them as they become adults. Mentors can help our youth pursue personal, academic and career goals. Many of us have natural mentors in the form of family members and neighbors while growing up, and that’s a great thing. However, in your county, research suggests that as many as 1 in 3 young people lack a positive, adult role model while growing up. That needs to be addressed immediately.

Children most in need of a mentor may include those growing up in neighborhoods with few resources, children raised in single-parent and no parent households and children living in remote populations. If we identify where children are receiving free or reduced lunch, we may also identify a strong need for mentoring.

Courageous conversations among all mentoring organizations

Any field we enter will likely have people with polarized views on how to address and solve a problem. With youth mentors, the conversation is not so much about whether youth benefit from mentorship, but what type of mentorship might be best. Mentoring programs can be quite siloed, with little communication with one another (even when they serve the same school or community). We need to create a seamless countywide system of mentorship from K–12 and beyond to vocational ed and college students. We need to understand where the needs are across all socio-economic levels, for long-term one-on-one mentoring programs. We also can explore innovations in web-based mentoring, acknowledging that the digital divide may keep web-based mentorship out of reach for some.