Mentor Training

Importance of Mentor Training and Ongoing Support

Training mentors to successfully work with youth is critically important for obtaining positive child outcomes and for preventing the potential harm that can result from unsuccessful mentoring relationships. Ineffective mentoring relationships, which include poor quality and prematurely terminating matches, have been implicated in a range of negative youth outcomes. Indeed, in two, large random assignment studies, youth in prematurely terminating mentoring relationships showed increases in problem behaviors (such as increases in alcohol consumption) relative to randomly assigned control groups (Grossman & Rhodes, 2002; Herrera et al., 2007) and a recent qualitative study described the profound disappointment reported by youth abandoned by their mentors (Spencer, 2007). By contrast, children and adolescents who are “effectively mentored” (as measured by the quality and length of the relationship) have better outcomes than those who are not mentored.

Likewise, a 2002 meta-analysis of mentoring program effects emphasized the importance of appropriate training and support to aid the development of committed and effective mentors. In fact, training of mentors and ongoing support directly affect mentor retention and mentee-related outcomes (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, & Cooper, 2002; Herrera et al., 2007). The effectiveness of mentor training appears to be manifested through its documented impact on mentors' feelings of closeness, support, satisfaction, and effectiveness (DuBois, Holloway et al., 2002; Herrera, Sipe, & McClanahan, 2000). These perceptions positively influence both outcomes and duration, suggesting the lasting importance of mentor training and the mentor's self-perceptions of efficacy to be a mentor for youth outcomes (DuBois & Neville, 1997; Parra, DuBois, Neville, Pugh-Lilly, & Povinelli, 2002).

[Page 440]Findings from related fields also underscore the need for training. A recent meta-analysis of the effectiveness of afterschool programs indicated that empirically-based skills programs involving teacher training had a more positive effect on child outcomes than did afterschool programs that provided no training or skills training for children that did not have a research basis (Durlak & Weissberg, 2007). Another study found that after-school staff members in community-based programs had a stronger intention to continue working in the youth development field when they received professional development training, learned aspects of their job from more experienced staff, and had adequate supervision and support (Hartje, Evans, Killian, & Brown, 2008). Likewise, meta-analyses of the effectiveness of psychotherapy have underscored the importance of therapist training as a means of advancing their understanding of the change process, developing clinical skills, and improving the mental health outcomes of clients (Joyce, Wolfarrdt, Sribney, & Aylwin, 2006). Taken together, these findings suggest that programs need to reliably, consistently, and competently implement evidence-based training methods.

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