Entries by Renee Spencer

A conversation with Renée Spencer

  Editors note: We are thrilled to feature Professor Renée Spencer (RS), whose work has significantly advanced our understanding of the dynamics of adult-youth relationships. In this conversation, UMass Boston clinical student, Laura Yoviene (LY) talks to Renée about her work and inspirations.  LY: As the nation’s leading qualitative researcher in mentoring, what do you see as […]

Developing Emotional Literacy: Transition Planning for Youth at Risk

Fleischer, L. (2010). Developing emotional literacy: Transition planning for youth at risk. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 19 (1), 50-53. Summarized by UMass Boston doctoral student Laura Yovienne. Problem: Transitioning from high school to the “real world” can be a daunting and very anxiety-provoking task. Typical transition classes and planning tend to focus on learning the […]

Empathy – A Critical Ingredient in Youth Mentoring Relationships?

by Renee Spencer Working on a poster my colleagues and I presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence gave me a great excuse to look at the recent psychotherapy literature on empathy. As a clinical social worker, the psychotherapy literature is like a dear old friend to me. I enjoy catching up on the […]

How mentors can supplement adolescent psychotherapy

So You Want to Be a Mentor? Food for Thought from a Clinician’s Casebook Editor’s Note:  Rather than simply considering how research on psychotherapy can inform our understanding of youth mentoring, in this week’s article we offer some food for thought for how mentoring may complement psychotherapeutic interventions and highlights some of the distinctions between these […]

How mentors can help youth flourish: Implications from positive psychology

Leach, C. J., Green, L. S., & Grant, A. M. (2014). Flourishing Youth Provision: The Potential Role of Positive Psychology and Coaching in Enhancing Youth Services. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 9(1). 44-58. Summary Great Britain and Australia have well-developed strategies for what is called youth work in these contexts – or […]

Benefits of Mentoring? It’s a Two-Way Street

By Renée Spencer, Ed.D., LICSW We often talk about what mentoring offers to young people today – how it can promote their development and improve their academic, social and emotional functioning. Increasingly, there is interest in how mentoring can also benefit mentors. Marc Freedman, in his prescient book, The Kindness of Strangers, described mentoring as […]

The effects of parent, teacher, and peer support on school engagement

Column Editor Renee Spencer’s Note: Recent scholarship is drawing attention to the link between mentoring and the long-standing and rich literature on social support. For example, Sterrett and colleagues (2011) argue that social support theory can offer a guiding framework for continued research on supportive non-parental adults and the role they play in promoting positive […]