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The top 30 mentoring movies of all time

By Jean Rhodes To mark its 25th anniversary back in 2015, MENTOR: National Mentoring Partnership compiled the top 25 mentoring movies of all time. Since then, 5 additional movies that touch on themes of mentorship make the list. These include: “Soul” (2020) – This animated film from Pixar delves into mentorship through the story of […]

On Methods: What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative approaches?

Editors Note: We are very fortunate to have Adar Ben-Eliyahu, Ph.D. our new Methods Editor, sharing with us her considerable expertise on research methods. Dr. Ben-Eliyahu completed her doctorate in developmental psychology at Duke University, where she honed very strong skills in methods. She is currently a MacArthur Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Evidence-Based […]

The road ahead: The promise of task shifting, stepped care, and paraprofessional mentoring

by Jean Rhodes As millions of children and adolescents cope with COVID-related loss, disruption, and social isolation, the demand for mental health services, including those provided by psychologists, counselors, and social workers, are expected to vastly exceed the supply. Even before the pandemic, less than a third of children and adolescents who needed mental health […]

Are supportive relationships enough? The great debate continues

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 […]

To disclose or not to disclose?

Edited by Renée Spencer Editor’s Note: Much like therapists, mentors are often confronted with making decisions – often on the spot – about what kind of information to share with their mentees and when. Laura Yoviene’s summary of a recent review article on therapist self-disclosure offers some insights and food for thought for tackling the […]

What Works In Mentoring? New UVA Scale Can Shed Light

By Stell Simonton, Youth Today What makes mentoring programs effective? And what makes some programs more effective than others? These questions have existed for years in youth development research. “We knew there was good empirical evidence for mentoring, but we didn’t know why. We just knew it showed benefits,” said Patrick H. Tolan, the Charles […]

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 […]

What we can learn from a “glittering ounce” of good news

“Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshiped and fondled like a priceless diamond.” -Hunter S. Thompson by Jean Rhodes Let us take a moment to recognize an extraordinary mentoring program that recently produced remarkably promising findings. The Arches Transformative Mentoring program has delivered […]

Youth-initiated mentoring: An idea whose time has come

by Jean Rhodes A growing number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of youth-initiated mentoring (YIM). Rather than being assigned a mentor, young people are provided with the skills and scaffolding to recruit caring adults from within their own networks. Last week, we highlighted a study in which Dutch researchers successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of this […]

Top 25 Mentoring Relationships in History

Jennifer Merrill, MENTOR Marketing & Communications Manager Behind every successful person, there’s a mentor who helped them along the way. Some of the most influential people in history were encouraged to succeed by some of the most well-known people of our time. To help celebrate MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership’s 25th Anniversary and 25 years of […]