Increasing the success rate of one-to-one youth mentoring with a survey
Abstract
Evaluations of mentoring programs show that a youth's one-to-one relationship with a supportive adult can lead to a number of positive outcomes. Research indicates that mentoring relationships that take hold are likely to grow progressively more valuable over time. This effective practice, submitted in June 2004 by the National Mentoring Center, offers a survey for evaluating both individual mentors and overall program quality.Issue
For mentoring to be truly effective, there needs to be a relationship that is built progressively. Short-lived matches are unlikely to result in positive outcomes for youth, and there is some evidence that they can have negative effects associated with the youth's feelings of being rejected.
Action
According to the National Mentoring Center, to reduce the number of failed matches between mentors and youth, programs need to step back and look at the patterns across all of their matches in order to assess overall strengths and weaknesses, identify the sources of recurring problems, and make necessary changes in program practices.
Written by Linda Jacovy of Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), Measuring the Quality of Mentor Youth Relationships: A Tool for Mentoring Programs helps prepare program operators and staff to administer a survey to youth in their programs, score the survey, perform basic analysis of the scores, and understand how to use the findings to improve program practices.
Qualities measured by the survey include:
- The extent to which the relationship is centered on the youth
- The youth's emotional engagement
- The extent to which the youth is satisfied with the relationship
- Administer the survey to groups of youth rather than individually. When youth complete the survey as part of a group, they are likely to feel more anonymous and, thus, be more honest in their responses. (However, if you are using the survey as a tool for monitoring individual relationships, you will need to ask the youth to write their name on the survey so the anonymity will be lost.) Processes for administering the survey to a group of youth are included in the source document.
- If you administer the survey in a one-to-one setting, think about which staff member or volunteer connected with your program would be the best choice to give the survey. Are there staff members youth might particularly want to please? If so, they are probably not the best choice for administering the survey because it could affect the honesty of the youth's responses.
Each program can decide when and how often to use the survey. For example, youth could complete the survey three months after they begin meeting with their mentor, and take the survey again at six months, nine months, and a year. Or the survey could be administered at four months, seven months and 12 months into the relationship.
When survey findings indicate that a program is fostering strong relationships, make sure the community knows.
Context
Based upon the research findings of the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) Impact study conducted by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), the National Mentoring Center at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory developed the publication Measuring the Quality of Mentor Youth Relationships: A Tool for Mentoring Programs.
In providing support to hundreds of youth mentoring programs nationwide, the National Mentoring Center identified the need for tools to monitor the quality of mentoring relationships and worked with P/PV to develop and disseminate this publication.
These tools have been used in a wide variety of one-to-one youth mentoring programs across the country. The National Mentoring Center is a project of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. The NMC, begun in 2000, is one of the preeminent national training and technical assistance providers for mentoring programs across the United States. Created and funded primarily by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the National Mentoring Center provides a range of services including:
- Large-scale training conference and workshop design and implementation
- In-depth coaching and program consulting
- Electronic information resources development and management
- Print material development and dissemination
- Data collection and evaluation
- Projects that support state and national initiatives
Outcome
Agencies that consistently use the tools and procedures found in this publication can use the survey findings to:
Support and strengthen individual mentor-youth relationships. The survey allows program administrators to measure the quality of each mentor-youth relationship over time. Thus, it can help identify relationships that need additional support if they are going to strengthen and endure.
Gain insight into how they can improve the overall effectiveness of their program. The survey can help to strengthen overall program effectiveness by allowing program administrators to:
- See the "big picture" -- the quality of the mentor-youth relationships across all of the participants in the program.
- Determine what the program is achieving currently. Findings can then be used to help identify what program practices should be strengthened, and to establish benchmarks that can be used to gauge program effectiveness over time.
Scoring sheets provide information that allows programs to compare the quality of their mentoring relationships to findings about the quality of the relationships in Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies, programs that have been shown to have significant, positive outcomes for youth.
Measure changes in scores over time that can help them measure the extent to which modifications in program practices are resulting in stronger mentor-youth relationships.
Positive findings help recruit mentors and promote the program to potential participants.
Additionally, data can be provided to funders to help them see that the program is making a difference in the lives of youth.
Evidence
The tools contained in this publication have been used by many mentoring programs nationwide and have been referenced in other mentoring evaluation surveys, such as the What Work's mentoring evaluation tools of the SEARCH Institute (http://www.search-institute.org/). The tool has also been cited in Stand By Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today's Youth, authored by mentoring researcher Jean Rhodes, Harvard University Press; March 2002.Posted On
July 27, 2004For More Information