How Single-Session Interventions Could Transform Mentoring

by Jean Rhodes

Single-session interventions (SSIs)–brief, targeted approaches to addressing specific challenges–are gaining traction in the mental health field. They could also be an important tool in ongoing mentoring relationships.

SSIs arose from a simple but often overlooked observation: most people who begin traditional mental health treatment don’t complete the recommended course. In fact, research shows that the majority of people attend just one or two sessions before discontinuing care, making the traditional multi-session model ineffective for many who need help. In other words, the first session is often the only session. Moreover, effective mental health care is often inaccessible to young people, with barriers ranging from cost, transportation, and waitlists to stigma and caregiver reluctance.

Work in this field has been pioneered by Northwestern Professor, Jessica Schleider, whose research has demonstrated that interventions as brief as 20 minutes can create meaningful improvements in mental health outcomes. Her studies show these brief interventions can achieve effect sizes remarkably similar to longer, multisession interventions.

What makes SSIs effective isn’t magic-it’s the singular focus on active ingredients. To create an SSI, researchers first identify the core components that drive change. For young people in distress, for example, change occurs through normalizing experiences using scientific evidence, centering their expertise about their own lives, encouraging the sharing of insights with others, and providing relevant testimonials from peers facing similar challenges. These core principles are featured in the freely available SSI’s that Professor Schleider and her team have created. Project YES, interventions could be accessed and completed with mentors.

Working with Jessica Schleider, Liz Raposa, Alex Werntz and I are currently creating a single-session version of Connected Futures. Fifteen and four-session versions of this intervention have proven effective with both high school and college students, but only a small percentage complete the whole intervention. Professor Sarah Schwartz has led work that identified the active ingredient as help seeking (most notably help seeking avoidance). Building on this, we are adapting Connected Futures into an engaging 15 to 30 minute, freely-available single-session, online format that is focused on improving help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. Our hope is that this will lead to increased social capital and improved outcomes, particularly among marginalized students who both (1) have a greater need for access to social capital; and (2) may face more barriers to engagement with longer, more traditional interventions.

More generally, the implications of this new science of SSI’s for mentoring programs are significant. Mentors could incorporate single-session approaches to address specific challenges as they arise.

Here are some practical applications:

Embed brief interventions within existing relationships: Mentors could be trained in delivering 15-30 minute structured activities when mentees face specific challenges like academic stress or relationship difficulties.

Create a toolkit of “mini-interventions:” Programs could develop a menu of brief, evidence-based exercises for common challenges, allowing mentors to select appropriate tools as needed.

Use digital supplements: As Schleider’s research demonstrates, online SSIs can be remarkably effective and highly scalable, with completion rates between 25-57%-extraordinarily high compared to typical digital mental health tools.

Offer SSI’s to youth on waitlists: When a young person and their family reach out for help-whether to a mentoring program or a counselor–they’re most receptive at that precise moment. Not weeks or months later when a mentor/counselor finally becomes available. SSIs could provide accessible in-the-moment, anonymous supports.

Those interested in learning more about implementing SSIs in mentoring contexts will have a unique opportunity next month through a free webinar featuring Professor Jessica Schleider.