Mentoring for Racial Justice: A New Blueprint for Positive Youth Development
Hurd, N. M. (2024). Promoting positive development among racially and ethnically marginalized youth: Advancing a novel model of natural mentoring. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 20, 259–284. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-080822-045011
Introduction
Hurd (2024) argues that racism and intersecting oppressions systematically constrain developmental opportunities for racially and ethnically marginalized youth, making “thriving” inseparable from structural change. Building on resilience models (e.g., PVEST; R3ISE) and Positive Youth Development (PYD), the review critiques overreliance on individual adaptation (including “skin-deep resilience”) and elevates collective antiracist action as a developmentally meaningful coping strategy. Hurd (2024) positions supportive non parental adults (particularly naturally occurring mentors) as underutilized assets for promoting both youth well-being and liberation-focused civic engagement.
Methods
This is a theory-driven integrative review advancing a conceptual model (NM4REMY). Hurd synthesizes scholarship on racism and youth development, PYD, critical consciousness, radical healing, youth–adult partnerships, social capital, and natural mentoring. The review culminates in a model specifying pathways through which natural mentors promote PYD and scaffold collective antiracist action toward racial justice outcomes.
Results
The NM4REMY model frames racism as the ecological context and racial justice/liberation as the endpoint. Natural mentors influence youth through five pathways:
(a) ethnoracial/cultural socialization
(b) cultivating critical reflection and radical hope
(c) scaffolding skills for critical action
(d) advocacy and opportunity brokering
(e) support for coping, including burnout prevention via self- and collective-care.
These pathways strengthen the “Cs” of PYD while directly enabling antiracist action.
Discussion
The author contends that mentoring research has overemphasized upward mobility and individualized success while insufficiently addressing racism as a root cause of inequity. NM4REMY reframes natural mentoring as a justice-oriented developmental resource, urging researchers and practitioners to measure social change outcomes and design interventions that intentionally support antiracist action.
Implications for Mentoring Programs
Programs should aim to recruit mentors from youths’ everyday networks, train mentors in culturally responsive socialization and critical consciousness, normalize activism-related stress support, and evaluate outcomes beyond individual achievement—including youth agency, collective efficacy, and community-level change.
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