Entries by Jean Rhodes

Meet “grit” psychologist Angela Duckworth

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by Max Nesterak (excerpted from The Psych Report) MN: You say in your TED Talk that we need to be grittier about making our kids grittier. Now that you’ve already said you don’t know, could you point to any leads that you have that you possibly think could make us grittier? AD: When I did […]

FORUM: Should mentors be compensated for their time?

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Do you think that mentors should be compensated for the time they put into working with youth?  Although more intensive programs are associated with better youth outcomes, programs must balance the potential benefits of more intensive relationships with potentially greater difficulty recruiting and retaining volunteer mentors. Some programs have addressed this tension by offering incentives […]

Types of Family Involvement across Mentoring Programs

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  Summarized by UMass Boston doctoral student Stella Kanchewa, M.A. Spencer, R., & Basualdo-Delmonico, A. (2014). Family involvement in  the youth mentoring process: A focus group study with program staff. Children and Youth Services Review, 41, 75-82. Introduction: Formal youth mentoring typically emphasizes the relationship between a mentor and mentee, particularly efforts related to the […]

Citi Foundation Bets Big on Mentoring for At-Risk Youth

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Michael Gentilucci (from Inside Philanthropy) Eariler this year, the Citi Foundation announced a $50 million, three-year initiative called Pathways to Progress, with the goal of providing entrepreneurship training, civic engagement opportunities, and summer employment to 100,000 low-income youth. The initial programs that the Citi Foundation decided to support as part of this initiative include ServiceWorks, which is focused […]

The friendship crisis: Why are boys so lonely and violent?

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by Niobe Way, Washington Post Elliot Rodgers, 22, killed himself and six people near the campus of the University of California Santa Barbara last month because he wanted to take revenge on “humanity” for his “loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desire.” In the few weeks since that occurred, there have been additional violent acts in schools across the country. […]

Schools That Separate the Child From the Trauma (With implications for mentoring)

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By DAVID BORNSTEIN (NYTimes) Recently, I reported on the damaging effects that prolonged stress can have on young children who lack adequate protection from adults. Over the past 15 years, researchers have learned that highly stressful — and potentially traumatic — childhood experiences are more prevalent than previously understood. Now scientists are shedding light on the […]

Moving Mentoring Forward: Expanding Access and Inclusion of Youth with Disabilities

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Assoc. Editor’s Note: The Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring is a proud supporter of the Highland Street AmeriCorps Ambassadors of Mentoring Program. The 2013-14 cohort of Ambassadors, in collaboration with Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) and Partners for Youth with Disabilities (PYD), have created the following training workshop that will take place in Boston, MA on June, 17th (Tuesday). […]

My Brother’s Keeper

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The My Brother’s Keeper Mentoring Campaign gains support from another agency with the announcement that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) will join the initiative, according to the office’s administrator, Robert L. Listenbee. The campaign aims to recruit mentors — particularly men or color — for at least one year as part […]

How to win friends and influence mentees

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by Jean Rhodes Nearly 80 years after its publication, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People remains one of the best-selling books of all time (30 million copies!). This led me to wonder whether some of the interpersonal skills that Carnegie highlights might be helpful to the millions of mentors working with today’s youth? The answer is […]

We are overmedicating America’s poorest kids

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Editor’s note: Nancy Rappaport, MD a colleague who has devoted her career to working with vulnerable youth in low-income school districts around Boston. In this post, which appeared today in the Washington Post, she discusses the problem of overmedication.  by Nancy Rappaport In America, poverty is a disease that comes with a host of symptoms. If […]