The Badge Boom Is Coming to Mentoring: Is that a Good Thing?

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By Jean Rhodes

Universities, youth-serving organizations, and training providers are increasingly offering professional development certificates, digital badges, stackable learning experiences, other “microcredentials” for people who mentor, supervise, and support young people. And, a recent report, featuring a survey of 880 mentoring professionals, helps explain why (Garringer et al., 2026). The report describes a highly educated workforce carrying an unusually broad range of responsibilities. Eighty percent divide their time across multiple roles, including direct service, administration, leadership, evaluation, fundraising, and organizational sustainability. Nearly all express interest in professional development, and a full 63 percent say greater access to it would make them more likely to remain in the field.

This demand extends beyond paid program staff. College students serving as peer mentors, community volunteers, therapeutic mentors, case managers, and others are also seeking opportunities to advance their understanding of effective practice and may want recognition for that learning. For college peer mentors, the role can build leadership, communication, institutional knowledge, confidence, and career identity (Beltman & Schaeben, 2012; Hayman et al., 2022). A credible microcredential can help make those gains visible to students, employers, and institutions.

The question then is what these microcredentials should represent and whether they lead to better practice and better opportunities. The science hasn’t quite caught up with this trend, and does not yet provide reliable counts of offerings, issuers, enrollments, or awards, but some evidence is emerging (Bholoa et al., 2022; Cumberland et al., 2024; Ramkissoon et al., 2022). By far, the clearest and most consistent message is that preparation and support (rather than the credential itself) that matters. In a randomized evaluation, my colleagues and I found that a web-based pre-match course improved mentors’ knowledge, preparedness, and self-efficacy while reducing unrealistically positive expectations (Kupersmidt, Stelter, et al., 2017). At the program level, we found that training was the single practice standard most clearly associated with longer mentoring matches in a national sample of nearly 30,000 matches (Kupersmidt, Stump, et al., 2017). Likewise, we found that specialized training was associated with stronger and longer matches for children of incarcerated parents when paired with additional funding and clear goals (Stump et al., 2018). This doesn’t have to be long, drawn out training. In fact, brief, targeted learning can help as well. In a randomized pilot, two just-in-time videos improved youth mentors’ use of empathic reflections (Hart et al., 2025).

Even so, it’s useful to consider how these credentials and good training might work together.

The rewards

Microcredentials can give learners a shared language, help programs organize professional development, provide a portable record of learning, and make career pathways more visible. According to the research, a useful mentoring microcredential should include:

  • Clear competencies that are directly connected to the learner’s actual role, whether volunteer mentor, peer mentor, match-support specialist, supervisor, or program leader.
  • Honest labeling of the achievement, distinguishing course completion from demonstrated proficiency.
  • Learning activities that include examples, practice, reflection, and feedback.
  • Employer or institutional recognition through advancement, academic credit, stipends, protected learning time, and higher earnings.
  • For staff and supervisors, stackable credentials may help document their work in recruitment and match support to supervision, evaluation, program design, and organizational leadership. For frontline mentors, shorter credentials may be most useful when they focus on practical skills, role boundaries, referral, and relationship-building. The design should fit the work rather than forcing every participant through the same professional ladder.

The risks

The growth of micro credentialing also raises questions about quality and access.

Inflation. One concern is credential inflation. Research on certification across public health, health care, and education has found little compelling evidence linking credentials to individual or organizational performance (Ogolla & Cioffi, 2007). The field needs to establish value through evidence and use.

Compliance. Programs may track modules finished while overlooking whether learners can use the material in difficult, ambiguous situations. A randomized study of relational training for adults working with young people found limited evidence of behavioral change (Akiva et al., 2022).

Access is another concern. Garringer et al.’s report identifies time and cost as major barriers to professional development. Requiring workers or student mentors to pay for credentials or complete them outside their normal responsibilities would place the burden on those least able to absorb it. Programs and funders should cover costs and protect time whenever the credential is expected to benefit the organization. And mentoring programs should be careful not to create new training requirements while leaving workers with the same caseloads, compensation, and lack of authority.

Indeed, microcredentials should not divert attention from the conditions that make learning possible. Youth development workers have long identified excessive responsibilities, paperwork, financial strain, weak supervision, few resources, and limited advancement as sources of stress and turnover (Laroche & Klein, 2008). A course cannot solve an unmanageable workload, and a badge cannot substitute for a supervisor who has time to authentically supervise.

Bottom Line

The most important metric of success isn’t the credential but the training behind it. The badge boom may be arriving in mentoring, but its lasting value will come from the training and support it signals, and from the opportunities it unlocks.

References

Akiva, T., White, A. M., Colvin, S., DeMand, A., & Page, L. C. (2022). Simple Interactions: A randomized controlled trial of relational training for adults who work with young people across settings. Applied Developmental Science, 26(2), 375–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2020.1819809

Beltman, S., & Schaeben, M. (2012). Institution-wide peer mentoring: Benefits for mentors. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 3(2), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.5204/INTJFYHE.V3I2.124

Bholoa, A., Baichoo, R. R., Ramkissoon, B., & Sider, S. (2022). Micro-credentialing mentoring: Development of an innovative mentoring competency framework. In Proceedings of the Tenth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning. https://doi.org/10.56059/pcf10.3849

Cumberland, D. M., Deckard, T. G., Kahle-Piasecki, L., Kerrick, S. A., & Ellinger, A. D. (2024). Making sense of the digital badging landscape in education and workplace settings: A scoping review of the empirical literature. European Journal of Training and Development, 48(1/2), 253–275. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-06-2022-0067

Garringer, M., Bennett, R., Seeley, A., Benning, C., & Issa, D. (2026). Movement Makers: A report on the state of the youth mentoring workforce. Boston, MA: MENTOR. https://www.mentoring.org/resource/movement-makers/

Hart, M. J., McQuillin, S. D., Iachini, A. L., Cooper, D. K., & Weist, M. D. (2025). The efficacy and usability of motivational interviewing just-in-time trainings for youth mentors. American Journal of Community Psychology, 76(1–2), 121–132. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12804

Hayman, R., Wharton, K., Bruce-Martin, C., & Allin, L. (2022). Benefits and motives for peer mentoring in higher education: An exploration through the lens of cultural capital. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 30(2), 256–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2022.2057098

Kupersmidt, J. B., Stelter, R. L., Rhodes, J. E., & Stump, K. N. (2017). Enhancing mentor efficacy and preparedness through web-based pre-match training. Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 7(3), 197–216. https://doi.org/10.18666/JNEL-2017-V7-I3-7945

Kupersmidt, J. B., Stump, K. N., Stelter, R. L., & Rhodes, J. E. (2017). Mentoring program practices as predictors of match longevity. Journal of Community Psychology, 45(5), 630–645. https://doi.org/10.1002/JCOP.21883

Laroche, H., & Klein, J. (2008). Lessons from the front lines: Factors that contribute to turnover among youth development workers. Journal of Youth Development, 2(3), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.5195/JYD.2008.331

Ogolla, C., & Cioffi, J. (2007). Concerns in workforce development: Linking certification and credentialing to outcomes. Public Health Nursing, 24(5), 429–438. https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1525-1446.2007.00653.X

Ramkissoon, B., Baichoo, R. R., Bholoa, A., & Sider, S. (2022). A novel competency framework for effective mentoring. In Proceedings of the Tenth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning. https://doi.org/10.56059/pcf10.9197

Stump, K. N., Kupersmidt, J. B., Stelter, R. L., & Rhodes, J. E. (2018). Mentoring program enhancements supporting effective mentoring of children of incarcerated parents. American Journal of Community Psychology, 62(1–2), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12250