Practice Goals/Target Population
Research has demonstrated a need for more adequate mental health care for youth in the United States (Costello et al. 2003). One method to help youth with mental health problems, such as emotional and behavioral problems, is mentoring, defined as a structured and trusting relationship that brings young people together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support, and encouragement to develop the competence and character of each mentee (MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership 2003). The goals of mentoring programs that target youths with emotional and behavioral problems are to decrease the prevalence of their psychiatric problems and to promote positive youth development.
Practice Components
While individual approaches can vary, there are at least three common factors among mentoring programs: 1) they involve mentors who are older individuals with more life experience than their mentees, who are younger; 2) mentors are expected to provide guidance to their mentees with the goal of fostering mentees’ growth, positive development, and transition into mature adulthood; and 3) the relationship between mentors and mentees involves an emotional bond that is founded on core relationship principles such as trust and respect.
Mentoring can be conducted in a variety of formats: one-on-one; group (with one mentor and multiple mentees); team (with multiple mentors and one or multiple mentees); peer (involving a youth mentoring other youths); and online/e-mentoring (by email and over the internet) [Sipe 2005] and it can take place in numerous settings (for example, community, school, or workplace). Regardless of the format or location, mentors provide mentees with tangible, emotional, or informational support that can help improve mentee outcomes (Barrera and Prelow 2000).
Youth with emotional and behavioral problems may be in psychiatric treatment. For these youth, mentors can provide certain supports and flexibility that traditional service providers, such as therapists, social workers, and counselors, may not be able to provide. For example, the structuring of mentoring programs enables mentors and mentees to develop longer-term relationships with minimal role boundaries. Further, mentors can have direct influences on these youth and their emotional and behavioral outcomes through activities such as talking about interpersonal and social-emotional difficulties, modeling effective problem-solving, rehearsing skills learned in therapy, being a safety line during crisis, and tutoring to improve academic performance, which in turn may enhance mentee mental health. Mentors can also have indirect influences on youth and their emotional and behavioral outcomes by encouraging youth to obtain or adhere to therapeutic services, de-stigmatizing therapy, and providing transportation (Ginsburg-Block, Rohrbeck, and Fantuzzo, 2006). Overall, direct support or influence involves mentors taking on a primary role in the mentee’s life, whereas indirect support or influence involves mentors taking on a secondary, more supportive role.
Key Personnel
Mentors are not therapists, but some mentoring programs teach mentors cognitive-behavioral therapy skills (e.g., contingency management) to help them be more helpful in their interactions with their mentees (Jent and Niec, 2009). Mentors are also not intended to be parental figures or peers to their younger mentees; rather, mentors serve as a transitional figure with parent- and peer-like qualities (Levinson et al., 1978). Mentor-mentee relationships may include formal mentoring organized by a program such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and that typically involves mentor training, supervision, and support; and informal or natural mentoring by a non-parental adult who is an established figure in the young person’s life such as a teacher, coach, or uncle (Zimmerman, Bingenheimer, and Behrendt, 2005).
Practice Theory
Mentoring youth with emotional and behavioral problems is rooted in a few theories. Rhodes (2005) developed a general theoretical model of youth mentoring, which proposes that the mentoring relationship, founded on basic principles such as mutuality, trust, and empathy, fosters positive outcomes for youth (e.g., decreased depressive symptoms) via processes that engender youth’s social-emotional, cognitive, and identity development. The more avenues of development that the mentoring relationship addresses, the more effective the relationship should be at promoting positive outcomes for youth. Further, providing youth resources to deal with life stressors and improve their mental health through mentoring is aligned with ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), which posits that youths are nested in multiple, larger systems (i.e., families, peer circles, schools, communities), and to address their internal states fully and effectively, therapy must address the contextual issues that directly and indirectly influence the individual. Therefore, connecting youth with psychiatric problems with caring adults, and providing them with more individual and internally focused treatment, may help youth better adapt to their external life circumstances (Kerr and King, 2013).
