Tag Archive for: Equity

Flash mentoring: An innovative new approach to building social capital

By Jean Rhodes Researchers have theorized about different types of social networks, and the need for a balance between so-called “bonding” and “bridging” social capital. Bonding capital involve relationships with close family and friends who are relatively similar in terms of race and social class, while bridging ties involve a broader network of relationships with […]

How Mentoring Can Shift from “Beating the Odds” to Changing the Odds

By Jean Rhodes In an important new Annual Review of Clinical Psychology article, UVA Professor Noelle Hurd, describes how mentors can help ethnically marginalized youth can derive positive developmental outcomes while also working with their mentees to create a more just and equitable society. As Hurd notes, much of the theorizing and research on natural […]

Five Ways to Improve How We Measure Young People’s Well-Being

By Kathryn L.S. Pettit, Hannah Daly, and Amelia Coffey, Reprinted from the Urban Institute Young people need resources and support to thrive both during adolescence and into adulthood. To work toward this, we need to be able to measure, track, and determine indicators that represent all aspects of well-being. Policymakers, funders, researchers, advocates, and practitioners […]

Fostering Change: Promoting Cultural Humility for Youth Mentors

Reference: Anderson, A. J., Jones, K. V., DuBois, D. L., Çifci, F., & Teger, Z. (2023). Cultural humility development in adults serving as mentors for youth: A qualitative evidence synthesis. American Journal of Community Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12730 Summarized by Ariel Ervin About the Study: Research on social justice in mentoring and relational mentoring posits that mentors […]

Providing Critical and Intense Mentoring Resources for Vulnerable Middle School Youth: Toward an Effective and Holistic Mentoring Framework

Submitted March, 2024 by: Karen Miner Romanoff, JD, PhD, Board Co-President, The Arthur Project Jessica Greenawalt, LCSW, PhD, Executive Director, The Arthur Project As we continue to work to provide essential resources for our most vulnerable youth, mentoring programs have grown as one potential solution. The research explaining which aspects of mentoring are most important […]

Youth civic engagement can help uphold democracy…and mentors can help.

By Elan C. Hope (Brennan Center post) Civic engagement is a key indicator of adulthood. Young adults respond to the social and political issues of the day in a variety of ways. After the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020, young people demonstrated against racial injustice in more than 10,000 peaceful […]

Illustrated

“The mental-health crisis has changed academia forever.” Five ways peer mentors can help.

By Jean Rhodes It is clear by now that the mental-health crisis has changed academia forever: its structures, its culture and the function it is expected to perform in American society. More than half of American college students now report depression, anxiety or seriously considering suicide. This is a problem that reaches across geography, race, […]

Four Ways Youth Social Capital is Mobilized

By Brian Lightfoot, Reprinted from the Search Institute More and more educators and youth-serving practitioners incorporate organizational and programmatic approaches to build youths’ social capital because embedding young people in relationship-rich environments fosters developmental relationships. Search Institute defines social capital as the resources that arise from a web of relationships, which youth can access and […]

The Crucial Role of Family and Social Networks in Cross-Racial Mentoring with Black Youth

Reference: Jones, K., Parra-Cardona, R., Sánchez, B., Vohra-Gupta, S., & Franklin, C. (2023). Forming an alliance: mentor’s perspectives on the role of family and social networks in cross-racial mentoring relationships with Black youth. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work. Summarized by Ellen Parry Luff About the Study: As community-based mentoring (CBM) programs […]

Navigating Sociopolitical Stress in Informal Mentorships: Insights for Educators and Youth Workers

Reference: Davis, A.L., Yazdani, N., Kornbluh, M., & McQuillin, S.D. (2023). Exploring the impact of natural mentors on sociopolitical stress: Implications for educators and youth workers. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice.  Summarized By: Ariel Ervin About the Study: College students faced unprecedented challenges during the fall of 2020 due to the rapid spread of […]