Profiles in Mentoring: A Conversation with Allison Davis on Autonomy Support in Youth Mentoring Relationships

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Dr. Davis is a school psychologist whose research focuses on strengthening supportive relationships in schools, drawing on her clinical work with children and families in schools, youth mentoring programs, and other community-based settings to better understand what makes these relationships nurturing and effective. She is especially interested in how to measure the quality and quantity of school-based mentoring relationships. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Davis about her paper on developing a framework outlining how mentors can support youth autonomy, featured here in The Chronicle!

The Chronicle (C): you describe a kind of vicious cycle where an adult’s well-meaning attempt to control a young person’s risky choice can actually backfire and push them toward more rebellion. For mentors reading this, what would you want them to do differently in the moment when they notice a mentee making a choice that worries them?

Amanda Davis (AD): The first thing I would advise mentors to do when they notice a mentee making a choice that worries them is to avoid the “righting reflex,” or the tendency to immediately jump in and correct a behavior. Think of the last time someone offered you unsolicited advice. It can be frustrating, and mentees often feel the same way! Mentors should, of course, prioritize the safety of their mentees and everyone around them. However, when safety is not an immediate concern, approaching the situation with humble curiosity by asking open-ended questions and engaging in active listening can help mentors prioritize relational quality and lay the groundwork for behavior change over time.

C: what has surprised you most in how mentoring programs have responded to this framework since it was published—have you heard from practitioners who felt it changed how they trained their mentors?
AD: I have been most surprised by the amount of interest this framework has received! Although I have not yet heard much feedback about how it has been implemented, I have frequently heard from practitioners that this is an issue they encounter and struggle with in their work with mentees. That feedback has further reinforced the need for a framework that can help guide practice in this area.
C: You draw a distinction between mentors and parents or teachers, arguing mentors are freer from the coercive expectations built into those other roles. Do you think that distinction holds up as mentoring programs become more formalized and outcome-driven, or does that same institutional pressure start to creep into mentoring too?
AD: What a great point! I can certainly see some of those pressures creeping into mentoring as programs become more formalized and outcome-driven. At the same time, I still think mentoring relationships inherently differ from relationships between young people and their parents or teachers. Mentors share an obligation to promote their mentees’ well-being and avoid harm, but their position within a young person’s developmental ecology is distinct. That unique positioning affords mentors opportunities to provide support in ways that may be less available to parents or teachers, even within increasingly formalized programs.

Read Dr. Allison Davis full paper here.