Research Alert: Sustainability of Community-Based Mentoring Programs
Editor’s note: From time to time on the NMRC Blog we will cross-post announcements about new research studies on mentoring drawing from the research listserv run by NMRC Research Board Chair Dr. David DuBois. Today we offer a quick glance at a study about evidence-based programs (EBPs) which “examined rates of sustainment of a wide range of proven-effective prevention and intervention programs” and identified various factors that contributed to programs’ sustainability.
A total of 77 programs were included in the study. Of these, 31% were classroom based (e.g., Life Skills Training), 27% were community/mentoring (e.g., Big Brothers and Big Sisters), 20% were family-focused prevention (e.g., Strengthening Families Program), and 22% were family treatment programs (e.g., Functional Family Therapy). The researchers evaluated programs’ “organizational support and readiness, program and implementer characteristics, and sustainability planning that distinguished sustained programs.
Study findings show that “the majority of EBPs sustained functioning 2 years or more beyond their initial funding. In general, sustained programs reported greater community coalition functioning, communication to key stakeholders, knowledge of the program’s logical model, communication with the trainer or program developer, and sustainability planning.” For the 21 community/mentoring programs studied, communication with trainers, connection to a well-functioning coalition, and financial and alignment sustainability planning were identified as key factors for sustainability.
Overall, 58% of the programs that were sustained operated at a lower level of functioning than they did when they initially received funding, 21% demonstrated the same level of functioning, and 21% operated at a higher level. This proportion varied by program type: 75% of family treatment programs sustained program delivery at the same or higher level, while 44% of family-focused prevention, 31% of classroom-based programs, and 25% of community/mentoring programs did so.
This study raises many important questions, including: What does it takes not only to sustain a program, but to implement it at the same or higher level of functioning over time? What unique challenges do community-based mentoring programs face, and what unique supports do they require to achieve sustainability?
Article Referenced:
Cooper, B.R., Bumbarger, B. & Moore J.E. Prev Sci. 2015 Jan; 16(1):145-57. doi: 10.1007/s11121-013-0427-1. PMID: 23975240
Article Contact:
Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA, brittany.cooper@wsu.edu.
The abstract for this article can be found here. Full text copies are available from the publisher or through your local public library.
You can join Dr. DuBois’ youth mentoring research and practice listserv by emailing him directly.