Contributors

Things May Fall Apart but You Will Make it Through with a Little Help from your Family, Friends, Teachers, and School

We are pleased to feature this thoughtful essay about first generation college students from Professor Margarita Azmitia. Dr. Azmitia grew up in Guatemala and is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She studies how family, peer, schools, and communities contour adolescents and young adults educational and identity pathways, adolescents’ friendships, […]

Mentoring expert, Bernadette Sánchez, discusses some of the challenges of field of mentoring

Experts’ Corner: Mentoring in the era of COVID-19 From the ‘Mentoring in the era of COVID-19: Nine experts in the field weigh in’ article by Justin Preston and Monica Arkin Dr. Bernadette Sánchez, Professor of Community Psychology at DePaul University. According to Dr. Sanchez, this focus on a general “field of mentoring,” so to speak, […]

The Role of Positive Youth Development

 By Wei-Lin Chen, Reprinted from the Society for Research on Adolescence Linver, M. R., Urban, J. B., Chen, W.-L., Gama, L., & Swomley, V. I. (2021). Predicting Positive Youth Development from Self-Regulation and Purpose in Early Adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12621 Positive Youth Development (PYD) emphasizes the potential for healthy, successful development, via interpersonal skills […]

Mentoring expert, Òscar Prieto-Flores, highlights the importance of relationship quality in mentoring programs

Experts’ Corner: Mentoring in the era of COVID-19 From the ‘Mentoring in the era of COVID-19: Nine experts in the field weigh in’ article by Justin Preston and Monica Arkin Dr. Òscar Prieto-Flores, associate professor of sociology at the University of Girona in Spain, agrees that relationship quality, while not the only necessary component of […]

Mentoring expert, Renée Spencer, emphasizes the importance of developing a clearer understanding of positive youth relationships

Experts’ Corner: Mentoring in the era of COVID-19 From the ‘Mentoring in the era of COVID-19: Nine experts in the field weigh in’ article by Justin Preston and Monica Arkin Dr. Renée Spencer, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Boston University School of Social Work, notes, “We’ve tried to apply tools best suited […]

Mentoring expert, Dr. Sam McQuillin, explains why school closings affect more than learning

Experts’ Corner: Mentoring in the era of COVID-19 From the ‘Mentoring in the era of COVID-19: Nine experts in the field weigh in’ article by Justin Preston and Monica Arkin For Samuel McQuillin, Associate Professor and Director of the School Psychology Program at the University of South Carolina, the past year has pointed to the […]

Mentoring in the era of COVID-19: Nine experts in the field weigh in

By Justin Preston and Monica Arkin Featuring Dr. Tim Cavell,  Janet Forbush, Michael Garringer, Dr. Samuel Dale McQuillin , Dr. Òscar Prieto-Flores, Dr. Bernadette Sánchez, Szilvia Simon, Dr. Renée Spencer, & Dr. Lindsey Weiler  Additional experts mentioned in this piece: Dr. Torie Weiston-Serdan, Steve Vassor, Dr. Noelle Hurd, & Dr. Belle Liang The world seems […]

“Trauma-Sensitive” Schools: A new framework for reaching troubled students

By LAURA PAPPANO (Harvard Education Letter) The most artfully devised curriculum means little to a student whose mind is fixed on last night’s shooting outside or the scary, violent fight between parents that broke out in the kitchen. Brilliant teaching often can’t compete with the sudden loss of a parent or friend. Yet incidents like these […]

The multitude and magnitude of coronavirus stressors on children

The perfect storm of insecurities and isolation creates a setup for mental health concerns and crisis. At BMC, at least 10 percent of parents have requested behavioral health support. By Barry Zuckerman and Katherine Gergen Barnett We’re months into the “new normal’’ of the coronavirus pandemic: social distancing, economic lockdowns, isolating ourselves from one another. […]

Book review by Prof. Richard Lerner: Older and Wiser: Rethinking Youth Mentoring for the 21st Century

by Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science, Professor and Director, Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University Albert Einstein once famously said that, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” In this superb book, Professor Rhodes has demonstrated why she is regarded as our nation’s, and […]