Research
NEW ZEALAND YOUTH MENTORING RESEARCH 2010
In 2010 the Youth Mentoring Network worked with UniServices at the University of Auckland to look at the effectiveness of youth mentoring in New Zealand. The research was undertaken by Dr. Sue Farruggia and Dr. Pat Bullen from the University of Auckland with the support and assistance from Ann Dunphy (Chair YMN), Frank Solomon and Efeso Collins (Trustees-YMN). The research was commissioned by the Health Research Council and the Ministry of Youth Development.
Download a copy of the research here:  NZ Youth Mentoring Research 2010 (351K)
RESEARCH
While this website is primarily focused on practical realities, we felt that it would be of interest to some readers to have access to recent academic articles that carefully examine underpinning theories and effectiveness of mentoring programmes.
A Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Impact of Mentoring on Re-Offending
This document was produced by the United Kingdom's Home Office (which is charged with citizen protection) and summarises the best available evidence on the effects of mentoring on re-offending.
The analysis is based on 18 studies where individuals were either 'at risk' of offending or had been apprehended by the police. It found that the success of mentoring in this context, i.e. the ability to reduce offending, was dependent on the duration of each mentor/mentee meeting, the frequency of the meetings, and the whether or not mentoring was carried out alongside other initiatives such as behaviour modification, supplementary education and employment programmes.
Young People Producing Careers & Identities - NZCER - Vaughan, Roberts, Gardiner
This is the first major report from the Pathways and Prospects Research Study (NZ) about path-way and career-related experiences and perspectives of young people after leaving school. It investigates how young people make decisions about their careers and working life, including any part that "indecision" and "change of heart" might play in that. The investigation raises some issues about the framework used in thinking about how to support young people in transition.
A Guide to Effective Practice for Mentoring Young People
This guide from the state government of Victoria is a practical resource and shared knowledge base designed to improve the quality of Victoria's mentoring programmes. The guide details what practitioners and research tell us about the effective features of mentoring programmes for young people including good practice principles, programme management and checklists and resources.
Mentoring and Crime Prevention: What is Good Practice?
In a crime prevention context, mentoring is often directed towards young people already involved in the criminal justice system or 'at-risk' of engaging in criminal activity. While the Australian Institute of Criminology acknowledges that little evidence of the long-term impact of mentoring programmes exists, it has identified some positive short-term outcomes including reductions in offending behaviour, completion of juvenile justice orders, reductions in substance misuse, and increased participation in education, training and employment.
Natural Mentoring Relationships and Young Adolescent Health
US researchers David L. DuBois and Naida Silverthorn examine the impact of natural (or informal) mentoring relationships on health-related outcomes among older adolescents and young adults. Their findings suggest that mentoring has a broad affect on adolescent health, however, they believe that mentoring alone is not enough to meet the needs of at-risk youths and should be incorporated into more comprehensive interventions.
Mentoring Relationships: An Explanatory Review (2004)
This is the longest paper (94 pages) but is of particular interest because it looks at a very wide range of mentoring programmes in both the UK and USA and uses a new technique called "realist synthesis" that project leader Roy Pawson of the University of Leeds describes as "the blind leading the blind" but actually is most insightful and interesting. The reader is guided with exceptional clarity, deft humour and useful diagrams through important concepts such as reference group theory, status barriers in the move from outsider to insider and the mentor role as a human bridge, plus the reality that the four mechanisms of mentoring - Emotional support, Raising of aspirations, Advocacy and Coaching can seldom be located in one person. Any reader in search of valuable generalisations, or insightful phrases to illuminate essential features of mentoring relationships would value reading this paper. "There is little data to support the idea of the pulling power of the distant, iconic role-model and much more to suggest that mentoring's essence occurs when the experienced hand demonstrates that a mentee is not alone in his or her current predicament. Experiences share well, especially if they are bittersweet." (p91)
MENTOR Research Agenda
United States' mentoring organisation MENTOR recognises that mentoring is not a "one-size-fits-all" proposition. In its quest to find out why different types of mentoring are effective for some, but not others, as well as to find out how to strengthen and improve mentoring efforts, MENTOR made it a priority to establish a long-term research agenda. The document below includes priority areas for future research emerging from the organisation's 2003 summit.
Research Agenda - MENTOR (2004) (152Kb pdf)
Informal/Natural Mentoring Relationships (2003)
Researchers at two universities in the USA and at Beijing Normal University have examined the influence of VIPs - Very Important (non-parental) Adults, on adolescents in two widely different cultural contexts. We are particularly fortunate that one of these researchers, Susan Farruggia now works at the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland, so that personal as well as e mail contact is available to readers.
Effectiveness Of Mentoring Programmes For Youth (2002)
This is a meta-analytic review of 55 evaluations of formal, structured mentoring programmes in the USA by Du Bois et al of the University of Missouri at Columbia. It independently confirms the vital nature of relationships and fundamental practice wisdom to follow sound guidelines, cautions against adverse effects of poorly implemented programmes, and endorses common-sense targeting of mentoring to those most at need due to unfavourable environmental factors.
Measuring the Quality of Mentor-Youth Relationships
All programmes struggle to a greater or lesser extent with mentor-youth matches that fail to develop into the kinds of supportive relationships that can lead to positive outcomes. Even programmes that carefully monitor individual matches rarely have the opportunity or resources to step back and look at the patterns across all of their matches in order to assess overall strengths and weaknesses, identify the sources of recurring problems, and make necessary changes in programme practices. The material in this document is intended to help programmes both monitor individual matches and develop a larger picture that provides a composite view of the strengths and shortcomings of all their matches.
Measuring the Quality of Mentor-Youth Relationships: A Tool for Mentoring Programs - PPV (2002) (101Kb) |
