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

Abstract

Formal youth mentoring programs typically rely on volunteers to serve as mentors to young people, with training and guidance from agency staff. A fundamental program practice is to provide ongoing support and supervision to volunteer mentors by engaging in regular contact to monitor the progress of the mentoring relationship and offer guidance and encouragement. Using data from mentors (n = 504) in multiple mentoring programs (n = 55), the current study investigated how the amount of time devoted to these match support contacts was associated with mentor perceptions regarding the nature of their volunteer experience, specifically: the quality of supervision received, the mentoring agency’s organizational culture with respect to engaging volunteers, and satisfaction with their volunteer service experience. Mentors who had no staff support contacts gave the lowest ratings for quality of supervision, organizational culture, and service experience. Further, mentors who typically had the shortest support contacts (1 to 5 minutes) reported lower quality supervision, organizational culture, and service experience compared to mentors with longer support contacts. In most cases, the associations between staff support contact length and mentor-reported outcomes remained significant after controlling for the helpfulness of the support contacts and the frequency of using advice suggested during the contacts. These findings provide evidence that match support contacts are an important practice for youth mentoring programs and suggest that programs should encourage staff to spend time engaging in meaningful conversations beyond quick check-ins. Future research should examine how the content of support contacts influences volunteer mentoring experiences.

Identifying predictors of psychological well‐being among volunteer mentors in Big Brothers Big Sisters

“…Another finding of this study was the differentiating role of program supervision quality in interaction with match length. Results align with previous research highlighting the importance of support from mentoring staff and program infrastructure, wherein a greater degree of program contact has been found to be associated with more positive mentor volunteer experiences (Keller et al, 2020) and reduced chance of premature match closure (McQuillin & Lyons, 2021). Furthermore, positive working alliances between mentors and program staff are associated with higher levels of mentor satisfaction and commitment in the mentoring relationship and more positive interactions between mentors and youth (Keller et al, 2023).…”

“…Our study suggests that match length may be associated with enhanced well‐being for mentors, just as it is for youth mentees (Grossman & Rhodes, 2002; Grossman et al, 2012). The findings also complement research highlighting the role of program supervision and support in promoting positive mentoring experiences (Drew et al, 2020; Keller & DuBois, 2021; Keller et al, 2020).…”

Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review

“…Mentors in various types of American programs who received early match training were likely to meet their mentees more frequently, had a match that lasted at least 12 months, and had higher relationship quality ratings in mentee reports [ 112 ]. The amount and level of emotional and tangible regular assistance and perceived support offered by the program and mentors’ perceptions of the quality of their training, skill-building, support for efficacy, and mattering have been shown to positively correlate with mentors’ perceived quality of the mentoring relationship [ 46 , 141 , 177 ]), perceived meaning in volunteering [ 178 ], mentoring duration [ 112 , 179 ], and frequent meetings [ 112 ] in different American programs with diverse duration. The totality of benchmarks and standards implemented according to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, 3rd Edition, by the BBBS mentoring programs predicted the length of mentoring relationships [ 113 , 147 ].…”

Do program practices matter for mentors?: How implementation of empirically supported program practices is associated with youth mentoring relationship quality

“…Mentoring programs typically have a two-tiered structure in which program staff supervise and support the volunteer mentors whose activities with youth in the relationship context represent the intervention. Once a mentoring match has been made, a staff member provides supervision and coaching that reinforces program priorities, policies, and procedures and offers advice, guidance, encouragement, and appreciation to the mentor through ongoing contacts (Keller et al, 2020;Keller, 2005a).…”

“…Features of these match support contacts, such as sufficient regularity and length, are associated with more positive volunteer experiences, more consistent meetings between mentors and mentees, and more positive impacts for youth participants (Herrera et al, 2008(Herrera et al, , 2013Keller et al, 2020). Thus, a mentor-staff alliance characterized by a positive working relationship and alignment on goals is expected to support the development and maintenance of the mentoring relationship (Keller, 2005b;Spencer et al, 2020).…”