Entries by Jean Rhodes

Should mentors be compensated? Two experts weigh in

Professor Timothy Cavell is the  Director of the Center for Research on Aggression and Victimization (CRAV). Primarily, CRAV’s researchers are interested in the development of effective interventions for school age children that may be on their way to having problems as they grow. Sometimes it makes sense to compensate mentors Do you think that mentors […]

New study explores White mentors’ beliefs about racial/ethnic discrimination

Editor’s note: Connecting with one child through a mentoring program can illuminate the pernicious effects of racial/ethnic discrimination, potentially mobilizing more sustained authentic action. Mentors’ negative stereotypes of disenfranchised groups are challenged by the many sources of strength in minority families neighborhoods. In other words, through proximity, mentoring helps challenge dominant narratives and make us, […]

Peer mentoring programs have enormous potential….but there’s a catch

By Jean Rhodes In a recent meta-analysis, my colleagues and I found that the effect size for cross‐age peer mentoring was more than double that observed in previous meta‐analyses of intergenerational mentoring. We concluded that “cross‐age peer mentoring can offer feasible and efficient opportunities to have older peers mentor youth with the potential for mutual […]

Room for improvement: New study suggests that the majority of kids don’t respond to depression treatment

Cuijpers, et al. (2023) The effects of psychological treatments of depression in children and adolescents on response, reliable change, and deterioration: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (2023) 32:177–192 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-021-01884-6 The Study Researchers conducted such  meta-analysis to examine children and adolescents’ response to of psychological treatments of depression , including clinically significant […]

Reflections on a major new evaluation of community-based mentoring

By Jean Rhodes Mentoring experts Carla Herrera, David DuBois, Janet Heubach, and Jean Grossman have just published a major new randomized controlled trial of the effects Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) Community-Based Mentoring (CBM) Program on the social-emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes of youth. The study included over 700 9- to 14-year-olds who […]