Practice

Why a little loneliness can be protective

“Loneliness is something we all have, we can all fall into, and nearly all of us experience at some point in our lives,” says John Cacioppo. (Photo Credit: Phil Thomas/Flickr) University of Chicago Posted by U. Chicago on March 2, 2016 The power of loneliness, and its potential for both causing depression and keeping us safe […]

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Giving support can improve mentors’ brain functioning

Giving support to others has unique positive effects on brain health, a new study finds. It changes key brain areas related to stress and reward, scientists have found. Those who regularly give support to others may have a reduced response to stress and be more sensitive to rewards. People in the study were asked about […]

Youth-Initiated Mentoring is a game changer for disconnected youth

DECEMBER 10, 2015 BY: DEBORAH NEARY & WHITNEY MASTIN, MIDLANDS MENTORING PARTNERSHIP, Originally published in NMRC Blog At Midlands Mentoring Partnership (MMP), our community-wide data indicates that a priority must be made to reach the most vulnerable youth with quality formal mentoring services. A prospective solution came in 2013 when promising research was released that showed […]

Using Evidence To Do the Most Good, Even When it Reveals an “Inconvenient Truth”

By Patrick T. McCarthy (reposted W.T. Grant Foundation) Our supply of evidence about What Works, though still too small, is beginning to grow. I want to focus here on how we use evidence—how we put it to work to help more of our nation’s children and families achieve their full potential. Let’s focus on two important […]

How Does Mentoring Benefit Youth? Let’s Count the Ways

by David DuBois One of the most common frustrations I have heard voiced by folks in practice and advocacy roles within our field is that the measures used in evaluations of programs do not seem adequate to the task of capturing the benefits that high-quality mentoring can offer to young people. It is tempting for […]

Empathy adds “powerful, positive spark” to philanthropic giving

Editor’s Note: In a recent NYTimes opinion piece, Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, argues that, although some forms of philanthropy may affect more lives than others, philanthropy based purely on rational decision making will be neither sustained nor beneficial to the donor if it doesn’t connect to the donor at an emotional level. She critiques […]

Can apprenticeships help reduce youth unemployment?

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 […]

On sparks, purpose, and natural mentors

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

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 […]

The Future of Evidence-based Policy

By Vivian Tseng First published on the WT Grant blog As a lifelong science geek, I’ve always thought research was fascinating, but I never thought it would inspire much political interest. Current events suggest that I may have been wrong. Research evidence is increasingly at the center of political and policy debates, and much of the […]