Entries by Jean Rhodes

Can apprenticeships help reduce youth unemployment?

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By Clio Chang, Century Foundation Policy Issue Brief America has a lingering problem employing its youngest workers. In July 2015, the nationwide youth unemployment rate was at 12.2 percent, more than double the general unemployment rate of 5.3 percent.1 Even worse, the number of disconnected youth—those between ages 16 to 24 who are neither in […]

Explaining terror to children and adolescents

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by Jean Rhodes, Ph.D. The attacks in Paris raise difficult questions for mentors. Should mentors, teachers, and other caring adults shelter young people from stories and explanations, and shift conversation elsewhere. Although this might be a good idea in some instances, there may be situations when it’s helpful to talk through difficult topics with mentees. Particularly […]

Over 100 votes, and the winner is…..

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      The results are in and the term caring adults won by a very small margin. Everyday mentors and natural mentors were edged out by only a couple of votes, and if combined, there still does appear to be a strong consensus around using the term “mentor,” despite some objections from formal mentoring programs. The term […]

Anchors, webs, and the triumph of Lorenzo Maudlin

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 By Jean Rhodes In a recent NYTimes Magazine feature, journalist Ben Shpigel describes the network of caring adults, including a foster mother, coaches, guidance counselors, formal mentors, and teachers, who helped NY Jets player, Lorezo Maudlin III, overcome overwhelmingly difficult circumstances. According to Shpigel: “His mother, Akima Lauderdale, an alcoholic with a penchant for selling cocaine, has […]

Tim Cavell on developmental relationships: They are the “holy grail but….”

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Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2012 Apr;82(2):157-66. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2012.01151.x.Developmental relationships as the active ingredient: a unifying working hypothesis of “what works” across intervention settings. Li J1, Julian MM.  From the abstract: “Developmental relationships are characterized by reciprocal human interactions that embody an enduring emotional attachment, progressively more complex patterns of joint activity, and a balance of power that […]

On sparks, purpose, and natural mentors

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Reflections on Natural Mentoring Conference by Peter Samuelson, Director, Research & Evaluation, Thrive Foundation If we want to increase the number of caring adults in the lives of youth, where might they be found? In the mentoring field, the metaphor of “fishing” has been used to illustrate mentoring. To increase the presence of caring adults […]

How a positive youth development framework can inform mentoring interventions for young adults

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By Kristin Anderson Moore, Senior Scholar, Child Trends Healthy People 2020 identifies positive youth development (PYD) as a major new approach for interventions, describing it as “the intentional process of providing all youth with the support, relationships, experiences, resources, and opportunities needed to become successful and competent adults.” A growing number of evaluations suggest that PYD […]