Posts

Can a book replace face-to-face mentoring?

Written by Justin Preston In a recent post, Jesse Wisnewski stated the claim that, for those having trouble finding an in-person mentor, learning from the books teaching the lessons of history can be a useful supplement. To be clear, Wisnewski is not saying that reading a book is the same as having a face-to-face conversation […]

New Research Brief from OJJDP on impacts of risk on match outcomes

Written by Justin Preston The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has recently released a Research in Brief piece on research conducted by a team of researchers at Mentoring Central, including Janis Kupersmidt, Katie Stump, Rebecca Stelter, as well as Jean Rhodes, (you can read the full brief here) around mentee risk status […]

New review of E-mentoring research from NMRC

Written by Justin Preston Just last month, the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) released a review of the latest research on electronic mentoring, or e-mentoring. The report, written by Michelle Kaufman of Johns Hopkins University, is organized around four distinct questions related to e-mentoring: What is the documented effectiveness of this approach to mentoring? What […]

New research identifies links between mentee strain and mentors’ response strategies

Wesely, J., Dzoba, N., Miller, H. & Rasche, C. (2016). Mentoring at-risk youth: An examination of strain and mentor response strategies. American Journal of Criminal Justice. DOI:10.1007/s12103-016-9353-7 Summarized by Justin Preston   Introduction Mentoring, in its various forms, has long been touted as a way of offering support and guidance to at-risk youth. While the […]

What color is your mentoring program? New paper specifies the many ways they can differ.

From the abstract of paper by Phillip Dawson (2015) “More than three decades of mentoring research has yet to converge on a unifying definition of mentoring; this is unsurprising given the diversity of relationships classified as mentoring. This article advances beyond a definition toward a common framework for specifying mentoring models. Sixteen design elements were […]

Six factors that promote intellectual engagement and foster your mentee’s potential

Written by Justin Preston In a recent article published in Human Development, researchers outlined a series of six factors of intellectual engagement that they argue, when present across all stages of life, can help to maintain and even spur cognitive growth. Cognitive growth, or the continuing development of cognitive faculties such as creativity and skill […]

Mentoring key piece of the puzzle in reducing STEM attrition

Written by Charlie Wood, the Christian Science Monitor As a freshman, Stephanie Mula found the University of Massachusetts’s engineering program “overwhelming.” A first-generation college student, she wasn’t sure what to expect, how to get the most out of her classes, or where to look for internships. Nevertheless, she went on to beat the odds of […]

Mentoring for youth and YA during reentry from confinement: A review of the research

Written by Justin Preston As part of an ongoing series, MENTOR’s National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) asks prominent researchers to extensively review the existing literature in a specific area of mentoring in order to draw conclusions on what works and implications for mentoring practice. This time, we are going to highlight NMRC’s research review of […]

New research on mentoring LGBT youth of color and transgender youth

Poteat, V. P. & Scheer, J. R. (2016). GSA advisors’ self-efficacy related to LGBT youth of color and transgender youth. Journal of LGBT Youth, 13(4), 311-325. doi: 10.1080/19361653.2016.1185757 Summarized by Jessica Cunningham   Background: LGBTQ youth are frequently victimized in schools at rates that are much higher than those of their heterosexual and/or cisgender peers […]

How a Canadian mentoring program flipped the script on negative refugee stereotypes

By Julia Pryce and Michael Kelly Ammar (not his real name), a refugee from Syria, entered Canada two years ago at the age of 14. When he first moved to Canada with his mother and sister, he was extremely shy and had no friends or sense of community. But now, at 16, Ammar is an active member […]