Influence of program staff on quality of relationships in a community‐based youth mentoring program

Abstract

In many mentoring programs, mentor–youth pairs have the latitude to engage in a wide range of activities together across varying community settings. Within this context, program staff are tasked with supporting development of high‐quality relationships between mentors and youth. To date, however, this role of program staff has been largely overlooked in research. The current study investigates potential contributions of program staff to mentoring relationships in the Big Brothers Big Sisters community‐based mentoring program over their first 15 months of relationship development with a sample of 450 mentor–youth pairs that were supported by 76 program staff across 10 agencies. Two‐level analyses (mentoring relationships nested within program staff) examined characteristics and approaches of program staff as prospective predictors of several facets of mentoring relationship quality as reported by youth: closeness, help with coping, youth‐centeredness, growth orientation, and attachment. Staff‐reported work engagement and emphasis on adherence to program guidelines as well as supervisor‐rated staff competence predicted more favorable mentoring relationship quality. By contrast, a nondirective approach to supporting mentors, as reported by staff, predicted lower relationship quality. These findings suggest that further investigation of program staff influences on mentoring relationship development could be fruitful and ultimately provide a basis for enhancing program effectiveness.

Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review

“…Coaching contributed to skill acquisition and knowledge learning in a long-term mentoring program with Malaysian youth [ 75 ]. A non-directed staff approach to supporting mentors predicted lower mentee-reported relationship qualities in BBBS of America [ 76 ]. Mentees in BBBS of America who characterized their relationships in terms of a “moderate” level of activities, structure, and setting limits and a lower level of support reported more numerous benefits, including less alienation from parents, fewer conflicts and inequality with friends, and an improved sense of self-worth and school competence relative to controls.…”

It’s About Time: Staff Support Contacts and Mentor Volunteer Experiences

“…In the youth mentoring intervention, the interpersonal interactions between program staff and volunteers represent the "point-of-service" processes through which program goals, policies, and procedures are communicated to volunteer mentors (Keller, 2005a;Keller & DuBois, 2019;Tseng & Seidman, 2007). Program staff implement practices that support volunteers through every stage of program participation, including recruitment, screening, training, matching with a mentee, monitoring and supporting of the match, and match closure (Keller, 2005b).…”

Key issues in professionalizing mentoring practices

“…21 A failure to consider research helps explain low levels of program effectiveness [12][13][14]16,19,20,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] and also the premature discontinuation of mentoring relationships. 47,48 Despite the existence of detailed findings on the components of successful mentoring, the approaches to planning and implementing many programs are often simplistic. Many programs have made use of a nonspecific friendship model of mentoring.…”

“…Ref. 47, for example, illustrates with its findings the importance of program staff for determining the success of mentoring outcomes.…”

“…Theoretical and empirical insights can easily be overlooked when mentoring programs are being planned and implemented 21 . A failure to consider research helps explain low levels of program effectiveness 12–14,16,19,20,25–31 and also the premature discontinuation of mentoring relationships 47,48 . Despite the existence of detailed findings on the components of successful mentoring, the approaches to planning and implementing many programs are often simplistic.…”