Chapter 3: Social Transitions

"Canoes floating in the ocean without a compass' is how a Howard University professor describes inner-city youth. Without guidance, the canoes will continue to drift further out to sea. For America's 13.6 million most vulnerable youth, mentors are a compass, guiding them into adulthood and helping them reach their fullest potential." So begins The National Mentoring Partnership's answer to the question "What is mentoring?"

Many famous individuals report having a mentor who nurtured them and helped them to succeed. Formal mentoring programs try to provide that experience to youth who have not found mentors on their own. Although mentoring programs are popular, their success is varied. What is mentoring? How is it defined? How are adolescents matched with mentors and what makes relationships work? Although mentoring programs are often touted by their advocates as providing an inexpensive way for volunteers to help the youth in their neighborhoods, research has found that good programs take time, effort, and considerable financial resources to succeed. In addition, many have questioned whether mentoring programs are effective in helping youth make the successful transition to adulthood.

Background:

• Mentoring.org serves as a clearinghouse of information for organizations and individuals interested in mentoring. They maintain a research-based list of best practices, as well as a portal to a variety of articles on mentoring programs. In addition, they provide a range of fact sheets summarizing research on topics ranging from on-line mentoring, to matching mentors and protégés, to keeping mentors together.
• Other general sources of information on mentoring include the Tutor/Mentoring Connection

• Literally thousands of mentoring programs exist in the United States. Many of them are listed through this resource guide.
• Big Brother/Big Sister is the largest and most successful mentoring program in the United States. It is also the most evaluated. Public/Private Ventures has engaged in a series of excellent and accessible evaluations of this longstanding program. You might also be interested in related materials on serving older and hard-to-reach youth.
• The Cornell Youth and Work Program uses an apprenticeship model to integrate high school students into work settings. Rather than focusing on fostering positive relationships between adolescents and adults, this program focuses on helping youth learn more about adult work environments and providing them more opportunities to interact with adults in those settings.