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One of the realities of being in a mentoring relationship is that, like all human relationships, it will have its ups and downs, moments of joy and moments of challenge. Mentors are not simply friends to young people, nor are they simply "authority figures." They show up to these relationships with purpose and a desire to help that young person explore possibilities, have conversations of learning and healing, set a course for their future, and overcome any challenges that pop up along the way. Because this is a complex role to play, there are skills and approaches mentors may need to bring to a mentoring relationship to enable that young person to get what they need from the experience. This resource will teach the reader about several key aspects of being a mentor: (1) the mindsets and attitudes that lay the foundation for a strong mentoring relationship; (2) basic information about youth development and the typical relationship cycle that might be experienced while mentoring; and (3) critical skills and competencies needed to grow and refine to meet the needs of the young people. All of these are explained in detail in this report. This information will help to fill a mentoring "toolbox" with the skills and attitudes that can help a young person (often referred to as a "mentee" in these types of relationships) on their journey. Because every mentoring relationship is unique, it is likely all of these skills won't apply to every relationship. But the topics highlighted in this resource are the ones that research suggests are extremely valuable in a wide variety of mentoring contexts.

Too many talented students who go to under-resourced schools do not achieve their full potential. Though they may perform very well relative to their classmates, these students do not receive the same kinds of academically challenging opportunities throughout their educational journey as do their counterparts in better-resourced public and private schools. Rather than matriculating to competitive high schools and from there to selective colleges they are qualified to attend, these students often go to less academically competitive high schools and on to colleges where graduation rates are low. Some even forgo college altogether. To address this problem, Higher Achievement offers an intensive, academically oriented program for middle school students in under-resourced schools. Starting in the summer before fifth or sixth grade, Higher Achievement offers its participants, called "scholars," 650 extra hours of academic enrichment and instruction after school and during the summers through the eighth grade. The program includes English and math instruction as well as field trips to competitive high schools and colleges, achievement test preparation, and assistance in applying for financial aid. This short report presents the results of a randomized controlled trial of Higher Achievement that started in 2005, comparing the outcomes of students who were offered the opportunity to participate in Higher Achievement (the program group) and students who were not (the control group). It presents the impacts of the program one, two, and four years after enrollment, as well as its long-term impacts on college attendance. The study found that Higher Achievement was successful at changing the educational trajectory of students through middle school and improved the academic quality of many students' high school experiences, but did not affect the colleges to which they matriculated. By Year 2, there were positive impacts on students' math and reading test scores. In Year 4, the impacts on math test scores remained statistically significant. Higher Achievement had a small impact on the types of high schools its scholars ultimately attended. Program group students were more likely than control group students to matriculate to private or parochial schools and less likely to go to nonacademically competitive charter or magnet schools. By 2019, there was no difference in college going. More than 70 percent of both program and control group students had ever attended college. There were no differences in the academic quality of the colleges Higher Achievement's scholars ultimately attended, as measured by being a two- or four-year college; a college having a lower acceptance rate; or a college whose freshmen on average had higher SAT math or reading scores. Higher Achievement's college impacts did not differ by whether a student's parent had attended college or by student characteristics. The study shows that Higher Achievement is a very effective middle school program, improving students' middle school trajectories. However, the impacts did not persist after the program through high school and college.

Many talented students in under-resourced schools do not reach their full potential. Research shows that by sixth grade, children born into poverty have likely spent 6,000 fewer hours learning than their middle-class counterparts. Higher Achievement, an intensive summer and after-school program, aims to close that learning gap. It offers participants more than 500 hours of academic enrichment activities a year to help them meet the high academic standards expected of college-bound students. Known as "scholars," Higher Achievement students enter the program during the summer before either fifth or sixth grade and commit to attending through eighth grade. The summer program consists of six weeks of morning classes in English Language Arts (ELA), math, science, and, in some centers, social studies, followed by enrichment activities in the afternoon, including chess, cooking, art, and soccer. During the school year, in addition to the program's regular study hall and enrichment activities, a cadre of mostly young professionals volunteer one day a week, delivering 75-minute ELA or math lessons to small groups of scholars. These volunteers receive detailed lesson plans and training so they can successfully execute the program's rigorous curricula. Part of what makes Higher Achievement affordable is its use of volunteers in this way. An earlier experimental evaluation of Metro DC, Higher Achievement's flagship affiliate in Washington, DC, and Alexandria, Virginia, found that the program was effective in improving academic performance two years after students applied. Since then, Higher Achievement has expanded to three new cities: Baltimore, Maryland; Richmond, Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Keenly aware that many effective flagship programs fail to be effective in new locations, the federal government funded an experimental validation study to examine the impacts at these expansion sites. Eligible students were randomly assigned either to a program group that could participate in Higher Achievement, or to a control group that could not enroll in the program. Comparing the two groups' outcomes provided an estimate of the program's impacts. The study found that the expansion sites experienced many of the implementation challenges common to school-based, out-of-school-time programs (for example, staff turnover, coordination with the host school, and lower-than-hoped-for attendance by middle school students), as well as those often seen in new programs (such as a lack of strong relationships with key partners and difficulty recruiting volunteers). Even so, Higher Achievement was found to be at least adequately implemented in all three cities. The study found that the program's detailed lesson plans, with scripted questions and student instructions, enabled the volunteers to deliver rigorous academic lessons. This report addresses the following questions: (1) How did the Higher Achievement centers operate during the study and what lessons are there for similar programs?; (2) Did scholars receive more academic enrichment over the two-year study period than they would have received without Higher Achievement?; and (3) How did Higher Achievement impact scholars' grades and test scores over the two years since they applied?

"The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles" presents findings from the first large-scale study to examine how the levels and types of risk youth face may influence their relationships with program-assigned mentors and the benefits they derive from these relationships. The study looked closely at the backgrounds of participating youth and their mentors, the mentoring relationships that formed, the program supports that were offered, and the benefits that youth accrued--and assessed how these varied for youth with differing "profiles" of risk. Five key findings resulted: (1) Without substantial effort beyond their normal outreach strategies, programs were able to reach and serve youth facing a wide range of challenges; (2) Youth with differing risk "profiles" (that is, levels and types of risk) had relationships of similar strength and duration and derived similar benefits from program participation; (3) The challenges reported by mentors and the reasons matches ended differed as a function of youth's risk profile; (4) The strongest program benefit, and most consistent across risk groups, was a reduction in depressive symptoms--a particularly noteworthy finding given that almost one in four youth reported worrisome levels of these symptoms at baseline. Findings also suggested gains in social acceptance, academic attitudes and grades. Youth did not appear to benefit in their relationships with parents or in their positive or negative behaviors; and (5) Mentors who received early-match training and consistent program support met more frequently and had longer-lasting relationships with their mentees. Youth whose mentors received training also reported higher-quality relationships. The authors believe the study's results provide useful guidance for practitioners, funders, and policymakers who want to know which youth are best suited for mentoring and how practices might be strengthened to help ensure that youth facing a variety of risks get the most out of their mentoring experience. Seven appendixes are included: (1) Study Method; (2) Analysis of Program Outcomes; (3) Who Were the Mentors?; (4) Measuring Risk; (5) Development and Validation of Mentoring Relationship Quality Scales (by Daniel A. Sass and Michael J. Karcher); (6) Analyses of the Effects of Rematching and Total Time Mentored on Youth Outcomes (by David L. DuBois, Daniel A. Sass and Michael J. Karcher); and (7) Analyses of the Contribution of Case Managers to Mentor Support and Match Outcomes (by Daniel A. Sass and Michael J. Karcher). (Contains 182 endnotes, 30 tables, and 3 figures.) [Additional funding was provided by Washington State Mentors (WSM) and Washington's Department of Social and Health Services. For the executive summary, see ED544230.]

"The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles" presents findings from the first large-scale study to examine how the levels and types of risk youth face may influence their relationships with program-assigned mentors and the benefits they derive from these relationships. The study looked closely at the backgrounds of participating youth and their mentors, the mentoring relationships that formed, the program supports that were offered, and the benefits that youth accrued--and assessed how these varied for youth with differing "profiles" of risk. The authors believe the study's results provide useful guidance for practitioners, funders and policymakers who want to know which youth are best suited for mentoring and how practices might be strengthened to help ensure that youth facing a variety of risks get the most out of their mentoring experience. This summary highlights the major findings and implications from the full report. (Contains 12 endnotes.) [Additional funding was provided by Washington's Department of Social and Health Services. For the full report, see ED544233.]

One crucial decision that middle schoolers (and their families) make is where they will attend high school. Many districts employ school choice systems designed to allow students to pick a high school that will meet their needs and interests. Yet most students prefer high schools that are close to home, and for youth in low-income neighborhoods, this often means attending a more disadvantaged, lower performing school (Nathanson et al. 2013). Youth who defy these odds and choose a competitive high school instead have much to gain. Cullen et al. (2005), for instance, found that Chicago public middle school students who chose to attend a higher-achieving high school were substantially more likely to graduate. However, even as eighth graders, these students already differed in many ways from their peers who chose a neighborhood school--they had better self-reported grades and higher expectations for the future, felt more prepared for high school, and were more likely to have spoken with their parents about what school to attend. These findings raise the question of how we can prepare more disadvantaged students to take the many steps necessary-throughout the middle school years-to successfully transition to a competitive, high-quality high school that can ultimately launch them toward college and careers. The Washington, DC-based Higher Achievement program is taking on this challenge. Higher Achievement targets rising fifth and sixth graders from "at-risk communities" and serves them throughout the middle school years. Its goal is to strengthen participants' academic skills, attitudes and behaviors, reinforce high aspirations and help students and their families navigate the process of applying to and selecting a high-quality high school. In 2006, the authors began a comprehensive multi-year evaluation of Higher Achievement to test its impact on participants' academic performance, attitudes and behaviors and on their high school enrollment. The evaluation used random assignment-the most rigorous design available to researchers-to assess program impacts. This brief summarizes the study's findings. Findings suggest that the program does appear to expand the options available to its students by making them more likely to apply to and attend private schools and less likely to apply to and attend weaker public magnet and charter schools. This, in turn, may position youth for better outcomes in high school and beyond. [This research was made possible by grants from The Atlantic Philanthropies, Bank of America, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, The Wallace Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.]

School-based mentoring (SBM) is an adaptation of the traditional mentoring model for schools. Involving schools can help programs reach groups of youth who may not otherwise be served, but school-based programs and their matches must adjust to the structure of the school. Available research suggests new and additional mentor training, staff support, and match maintenance efforts, such as summer contacts, may be necessary if SBM is to maximize its potential. There also is some evidence that the school poses unique constraints on mentoring that may interact with developmental and gender norms to make it more effective for some youth than others. Adapting school-based mentoring in ways that better suit the specific needs of boys and girls of different ages will be a significant next step in the realization of potential benefits of this approach to promoting positive youth development. The article is followed by suggestions on how practitioners can incorporate the research findings into mentoring programs and a list of additional resources. [The 10-issue "Research in Action" series, edited by Jean E. Rhodes, is the initial project of the MENTOR Research and Policy Council, charged with taking current mentoring research and translating it into useful, user-friendly materials for mentoring practitioners. For full series, see ED502220 through ED502229, inclusive.]

Boys & Girls Clubs in New York City and Boston participated in a 3-year initiative to provide and enhance services to underserved teens. Researchers collected data via surveys of club members and staff; cost surveys of club administrators; interviews, focus groups, and observations at each club; and attendance information. Results indicated that these voluntary youth-serving organizations drew in many community teens. In 1 year, Boston added from 20-100 new teen members at each club, while New York added from 201-1,100 new teens. Clubs that went beyond recruitment goals experienced difficulty meeting teens' needs. Clubs reached teens with such strategies as increased hours of activities, collaborations with outside agencies, and targeted street outreach. Programs served teens with many needs, though they found this challenging. Sustaining teens' involvement was more difficult than recruitment. Clubs retained a little over half of their target groups for at least a full year. About 40 percent of teens attended less than once a month. Program challenges included hiring appropriate staff, preventing turnover, and providing sufficient staff training. Clubs were quite successful in providing teens with emotional and instrumental support. Over three-quarters of teens reported feeling safe at their clubs. Clubs in both cities invested in improvements in their management information systems. Appendices include youth survey scales and constructs and characteristics of youth survey participants. (Contains 15 references.) (SM)

This study investigated three innovative group mentoring programs and examined findings from data collected in two earlier studies of mentoring programs. The three programs were YouthFriends, which provided technical assistance to school districts establishing school-based mentoring programs; TEAMWORKS, which organized teams of mentors to meet with groups of middle school students; and the Group Mentoring Program of the Be-A-Friend Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program, which assigned paid staff to mentor small groups of youth. Researchers interviewed program and school staff, youth, and mentors, and held focus groups with 12 additional mentors. The previous study involved interviewing mentors working with groups of youth and working one-on-one. Results indicate that group mentoring attracts volunteers who are less likely to volunteer for individual mentoring. The onsite programming of many group programs facilitates recruitment of youth who may have been missed by traditional recruitment efforts. Although most group mentors want to develop personal relationships with youth, they place more emphasis on improving peer interactions. While mentor-youth relationships can develop in group settings, the quality of these relationships varies widely. Participants reported improvements in youth's social skills, relationships with nongroup members, and academic performance and attitudes. (Contains 15 tables and 43 references.) (SM)

This study explored the experiences of volunteers and the development of relationships within the two largest contingents of one-on-one mentoring programs: community-based programs and school-based programs. The emphases of school-based programs were studied, along with the quality of developed relationships between youth and mentors and the benchmarks programs can use to ensure optimal development of supportive relationships. A survey was completed by 1,101 mentors in 98 mentoring programs. Mentors in school-based programs were found to spend more time working on academics or doing homework with their mentees. Mentors in school-based programs were of many ages, but mentors in community-based programs were almost all aged 22 to 49. School-based programs delivered fewer contact hours but were also slightly less expensive to conduct. Over 90% of mentors in both types of programs said that they felt close to their mentees, but more community-based mentors felt "very close" to their mentees. Nine factors that provide benchmarks of developing relationships were: (1) engaging in social activities; (2) engaging in academic activities; (3) number of hours per month spent together; (4) decision-making shared by mentor and mentee; (5) prematch training; (6) postmatch training; (7) mentor screening (only important relationship development in community-based programs); (8) matching; and (9) age of the mentee. Results suggest that a school-based approach to providing disadvantaged youth with volunteer mentors is a promising complement to the traditional community-based mentoring model. Practices that facilitate the development of mentor-mentee relationships are reviewed. Appendixes contain a list of members of the Public Policy Council of the National Mentoring Partnership and a discussion of study methodology. (Contains 10 tables and 20 references.) (SLD)

Given the strong interest in school-based mentoring programs, Public/Private Ventures visited two exemplary mentoring programs chosen by the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA). One program was in Green County, Oklahoma, and the other in Jacksonville, Florida. Researchers talked with parents, teachers, children, and mentors to learn more about how the programs operated and the effects they have on the students and the school. The visits led to four conclusions: (1) school-based mentoring programs reach volunteers and youth who would not participate in community-based programs; (2) school staff provide information to BBBSA staff to help create strong matches and supervise these matches closely; (3) mentoring in the school context can provide volunteers with support and enable them to act as educational advocates for youth; and (4) strong relationships can develop within the school context, and these relationships can make a difference in the lives of youth. Study findings suggest that involving youth in well-run school-based mentoring programs can be an effective way to address the needs of disadvantaged youth. (Contains 17 endnotes.) (SLD)

This issue of "Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) In Brief" is based on "High School Students as Mentors," a report that examined the efficacy of high school mentors using data from P/PV's large-scale random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring programs. The brief presents an overview of the findings, which suggest that high school volunteers bring inherent strengths to their role as mentors but also present notable challenges for programs; implications for policy and practice are also explored. (Contains 10 endnotes.)

High schools have recently become a popular source of mentors for school-based mentoring (SBM) programs. The high school Bigs program of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, for example, currently involves close to 50,000 high-school-aged mentors across the country. While the use of these young mentors has several potential advantages, their age raises questions about their capacity to be consistent, positive role models, and, in turn, their potential to yield strong impacts for the youth they mentor. With support from The Atlantic Philanthropies and in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Public/Private Ventures set out to address these questions using data from our large-scale random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters SBM (Herrera, et al. 2007). We found that, on average, high school students were much less effective than adults at yielding impacts for the youth they mentor. However, our research identified several program practices that were linked with longer, stronger and more effective high school mentor relationships. High School Students as Mentors stresses the need for programs with high school volunteers to use the inherent strengths of these volunteers and, at the same time, meet their distinct needs. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is already initiating most of the changes suggested in the study in its high school Bigs program; it has convened a group of six of its strongest Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies to review these and other findings and share their own experiences and strategies in an effort to strengthen their model. (Contains 41 endnotes, 3 figures and 2 tables.)

School-based mentoring is one of the fastest growing forms of mentoring in the US today; yet, few studies have rigorously examined its impacts. This landmark random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring is the first national study of this program model. It involves 10 agencies, 71 schools and 1,139 9- to 16-year-old youth randomly assigned to either a treatment group of program participants or a control group of their non-mentored peers. Surveys were administered to all participating youth, their teachers and mentors in the fall of 2004, spring of 2005 and late fall of 2005. The report describes the programs and their participants and answers several key questions, including: Does school-based mentoring work? What kinds of mentoring experiences help to ensure benefits? How much do these programs cost? Our findings highlight both the strengths of this program model and its current limitations and suggest several recommendations for refining this promising model--recommendations that Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies across the country are already working to implement. Eight appendixes are included: (1) Methodology; (2) Impact Analyses; (3) Participating Schools; (4) Associations between Match Support and Training and Indicators of Match Success; (5) Effect Sizes; (6) Does BBBS SMB Provide Different Benefits for Different Groups of Littles?; (7) Follow-Up Analyses to Further Explore Associations between Match Length, Relationship Quality and Outcomes; and (8) Outcome Trajectories for One-School-Year and 15-Month Littles. (Contains 117 endnotes, 5 figures, and 42 tables.) [This report was written with Linda Z. Jucovy.]

Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) recently launched a multiyear study to understand the role that Boys & Girls Clubs play in the lives of early adolescents. Beyond Safe Havens, a prelude to the larger study, reviews the range of evaluations that have been conducted on Boys & Girls Clubs over the past 20 years. The report identifies the potential benefits of the many discrete programs provided by Clubs and discusses three additional studies that examined the broader club experience. It also outlines the strategies that seem to have contributed to the Clubs' successes, as well as any challenges that may have impeded more positive results. The report concludes with a brief description of a planned longitudinal evaluation of Club members as they transition to high school--an evaluation meant to provide documentation of the effect of teens' broad Club experiences on a wide range of outcomes. (Contains 9 endnotes and 1 table.)

With traditional mentoring programs working hard to attract new kinds of volunteers and schools facing increased pressure to help students succeed, school-based mentoring is a promising--and increasingly popular--approach. According to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the number of school-based matches grew from 27,000 in 1999 to 90,000 in 2002, an increase of 233 percent. P/PV has published two previous reports on the school-based mentoring model. "School-Based Mentoring: A Closer Look" follows up on those earlier studies by analyzing the results of surveys we conducted with youth, mentors, teachers and case managers involved in three BBBS school-based mentoring programs. The report addresses the following questions: What are the characteristics of mentor-youth matches in school-based programs? What is the quality of the relationships? And what kinds of benefits may youth be gaining from involvement? (Four appendixes are included: (1) Methodology; (2) Survey Scales and Constructs; (3) What Can this Study Tell Us about Self-Assessment and Evaluation?; and (4) Econometric Analysis of the Benefits of School-Based Mentoring (Amanda Bayer). Contains 20 endnotes, 7 figures and 1 table.)