Tag Archive for: Mental Health

Three ways that mentoring programs will be forever changed by COVID-19

By Jean Rhodes The end of the pandemic may be on the horizon, but its impact on mentoring program practices will be felt well into the future. Sadly, many relationships were disrupted just when youth needed them most. The loss of face-to-face contact was particularly painful as youth struggled with the isolation and anxiety.  A […]

Four strategies for improving the field of youth mentoring

by Jean Rhodes Youth mentoring programs sit at the nexus of treatment and prevention science, offering both the structure for creating helping relationships and the apparatus for scaling them to many youth. Thus, they are exceptionally well-positioned to benefit from the lessons and innovations from both fields. Treatment science provides the rationale and resources for […]

How mentors can help students navigate another complicated school year

By Jean Rhodes As schools across the country close for the beginning of the new year, youth mentoring programs have a vital role to play in mitigating student struggles. Learning slides are already expected to be steepest for low-income, Black and Hispanic students, who typically live in more crowded homes and have less access to […]

Paraprofessionals are able to deliver group-based mentoring as effective as psychology graduate students

Strait, GG, Turner, J, Stinson, D, et al. Paraprofessionals use of group school‐based instrumental mentoring: Examining process and preliminary outcomes. Psychol Schs. 2020; 57: 1492– 1505. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22417 Summarized by Harry Bayly Notes of Interest: The study compared undergraduate student volunteers, “paraprofessionals,” with psychology graduate students who acted as mentors to sixth graders in a middle […]

Sneak preview: An excerpt from Older and Wiser!

By Jean Rhodes Yesterday my new book, “Older and Wiser: New Ideas for Mentoring in the 21st Century,” hit the stands – the culmination of 30 years of research and several years of writing and reflection. Today, I’m thrilled to share with you the introduction. If you’d like to order copies for your staff, please […]

How cognitive biases shape our beliefs about mentoring

by Jean Rhodes When we hear the word  “bias,” we instinctively think of such things as racial prejudice or slanted news coverage, but our brains are actually remarkably susceptible to all sorts of cognitive biases (Yagoda, 2018). Indeed, cognitive biases are very much at work in the field of youth mentoring. As I discuss in […]

What should after school programs be doing to help struggling readers?

By Stell Simonton, Youth Today One-on-one tutoring programs like Experience Corps have the most evidence for helping struggling young readers in an after-school setting. Sounding out letter combinations is a crucial step in assisting struggling readers, but this effective teaching method has often been sidelined, according to experts. Nineteen years ago, a panel of experts […]

Messing with Mr. InBetween: Prevention science and the road to rigor in youth mentoring

By Jean Rhodes         You’ve got to accentuate the positive,         Eliminate the negative,         Latch on to the affirmative,         Don’t mess with Mr. InBetween.                 (Johnny Mercer) Who could disagree? Well, for starters, a growing […]

Four takeaways from a forthcoming book on youth mentoring

By Jean Rhodes When I wrote Stand by Me: The risks and rewards of mentoring today’s youth more than 15 years ago, I assumed that it would be my final, book-length manuscript on youth mentoring.  As I  complete yet a second book on the topic, I am struck by just how much has changed in […]

Persuasion & healing: Why youth mentoring programs should prioritize mental health

“The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.” Toni Morrison, Beloved. by Jean Rhodes Although youth mentoring programs should continue to target the full range of issues (e.g.., academics, college access, job skills), mental health and wellness are particularly important priorities. The basic contours of […]