The Duality of Rapport: Experiences of Mentors in the Juvenile Justice System
Introduction
Mentoring has long been considered a transformative intervention for young people involved in the justice system. The role of mentors extends beyond traditional support mechanisms, providing guidance, fostering trust, and offering stability to youth who often lack consistent adult relationships. However, the mechanisms through which mentoring fosters positive change remain under-explored.
Hartung and colleagues (2025) clarify this process by examining how volunteer mentors conceptualize and cultivate rapport with their mentees. By drawing on survey and focus group data from an Australian mentoring program, the researchers interrogate the nature of rapport, its role in mentoring relationships, and the diverse ways it is enacted.
Methods
The researchers obtained survey responses from 28 volunteer mentors, as well as a follow-up focus group with three participants. The mentors supported justice-involved youth or those impacted by familial incarceration.
The survey explored mentors’ expectations, perceptions of relationship-building, and reflections on successful mentoring interactions. The focus group provided a deeper examination of the themes emerging from the survey, allowing mentors to elaborate on their experiences in a conversational setting.
Data interpretation challenged essentialist assumptions about rapport and emphasized the fluidity and context-dependence of mentoring relationships. The researchers coded responses for recurring themes, identifying patterns in how mentors framed their interactions, the significance they ascribed to rapport, and the strategies they employed to foster connection.
Results
The study reveals that rapport-building is simultaneously straightforward and enigmatic—a paradox that mentors navigate in varied ways. Three key themes emerged:
- Rapport as an End vs. a Means: Mentors differed in their views on rapport’s purpose. Some saw rapport as the fundamental goal of mentoring, emphasizing the importance of providing a stable, nonjudgmental adult presence. Others viewed rapport instrumentally—as a gateway to achieving developmental goals such as literacy improvement, social skills, or behavioral changes.
- Rapport as a Contextual and Unquantifiable Feeling: Many mentors described rapport as an intangible quality; something sensed rather than explicitly defined. The study highlights how mentors assessed rapport through the comfort levels of their mentees, the perceived ease of conversation, and the absence of tension. However, the researchers note that rapport is not always immediately apparent, as it can manifest subtly over time, requiring patience and consistency.
- Rapport as an ‘Act of Belonging’: Building on sociological theories of belonging, the study suggests that mentors engage in ‘acts of belonging’—deliberate verbal and nonverbal behaviors that signal inclusion and acceptance. This included mentors sharing their own vulnerabilities, withholding judgment, and allowing mentees the space to express themselves at their own pace. Some mentors, particularly those with lived experience of the justice system, leveraged shared histories to foster connection, embodying the ‘credible messenger’ model seen in restorative justice programs.
Discussion
This study challenges conventional framings of mentor-mentee relationships that assume rapport is a universally positive and easily attainable feature of mentoring. Instead, it presents rapport as a dynamic, relational process influenced by individual, contextual, and structural factors.
The findings complicate traditional notions of mentoring by highlighting that rapport is not always built on trust and respect alone. Rather, mentors must navigate discomfort, allow for relational asymmetries, and accept that mentees may engage on their own terms and timelines.
By situating rapport within a poststructuralist framework, the study broadens the discourse on mentoring, moving beyond the ‘who’ and ‘why’ to explore the ‘how’ of relationship-building. It underscores the need for mentoring programs to provide training that acknowledges the complexities of rapport and equips mentors with the skills to navigate its unpredictability.
Implications for Mentoring Programs
The findings have significant implications for mentoring programs working with justice-involved youth. To optimize mentor effectiveness, programs can:
- Encourage mentors to adapt their approaches based on the needs and engagement styles of individual mentees.
- Train mentors to recognize that relationship-building is a gradual process that may not yield immediate signs of success.
- Recognize that success in mentoring relationships may not always be measurable in conventional terms; the mere presence of a stable, nonjudgmental adult can be a transformative factor in itself.
Find the article here
