Entries by Jean Rhodes

“Black Box Thinking:” Drawing on disappointing findings to improve youth mentoring programs

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by Jean Rhodes After a plane crash, investigators examine black box data to determine what went wrong and to make the necessary changes to protect against future incidents. Unfortunately,  that is not always the case in evaluations of prevention programs. In fact, we often find it easier to reframe and dismiss disappointing results than to […]

Getting to Carnegie Hall: Why practicing skills is a “best practice” in mentoring

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by Jean Rhodes Chances are you’ve heard about the pedestrian on 57th Street who sees a musician getting out of a cab and asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Without pause, the musician replies “Practice.” Indeed, when it comes to any skill, from music and sports to academics and social-emotional learning, practice makes […]

Are supportive relationships enough? The great debate continues

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by Jean Rhodes In their provocative new paper, Back to the Future: Mentoring as Means and End in Promoting Child Mental Health, mentoring experts Tim Cavell, Renée Spencer & Sam D. McQuillin make the case for several approaches, including the “supportive mentoring” approach, wherein the “mentoring relationship is not intended as a targeted intervention designed to produce […]

“I thought, are you serious, really, in the United States of America?”: How a revolutionary new social policy will lift mentees’ lives

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By Jean Rhodes Let’s take a moment to celebrate some really good news for American youth and their families. Tucked into the new economic stimulus bill is the most sweeping anti-poverty effort in generations.– a guaranteed income for families with children. Although this provision hasn’t gotten much attention, it is expected to cut child poverty […]

Now more than ever: Best practices for working with immigrant youth

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by Jean Rhodes Editor’s note: Mentors who are working with the many immigrant children in our country are, no doubt, concerned about the immigration-related policies of the former administration, including its the anti-immigration rhetoric and hate incidents/speech of recent months. Although President Biden is seeking to reverse many of the measures, and restore DACA, the policies […]

Making the case for paraprofessional mentoring …40 years ago

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by Jean Rhodes In 1979, a young psychology professor named Joseph Durlak published a controversial study in Psychological Bulletin that sent ripples through the helping professions. What Joe sought to do was to combine all published studies that had compared the outcomes of experienced psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers with those of paraprofessionals (i.e., nonexpert, […]