Bullying
Bullying refers to aggressive behavior that is perpetrated repeatedly with the intention to inflict physical, psychological, or social harm on a peer.8 Children who bully their peers are often also aggressive with teachers, parents, and siblings and tend to experience a range of problems throughout childhood and young adulthood. For example, children who display early-onset conduct problems, including aggression, are known to experience school difficulties9,10 and peer relationship problems,11 and are less interpersonally skilled than their peers.12 During adolescence these children are likely to engage in higher rates of criminal activity13 and substance use,14 are more likely to experience teenage pregnancy,15 and are more apt to be diagnosed with a mental illness.16 As young adults, they are more likely to be unemployed and impoverished,17 to experience difficulties in romantic relationships,18 and to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.19 These findings, coupled with the fact that many at-risk youth who are served by youth mentoring programs exhibit behavioral problems, were influential in our selection of bullying as an outcome. It is also clear that bullying is becoming a major public health problem in the US and abroad, and youth mentoring could complement school-wide interventions aimed at reducing bullying. Although limited, available evidence suggests that mentoring can lead to reductions in aggressive behavior,1 but more research is needed in this domain, particularly as it relates to the effect of mentoring on bullying per se.
Disruptive Behavior at School and School Discipline
The Toolkit contains measures of both disruptive behavior at school (through a self-report measure and the collection of school records), as well as the disciplinary actions that result from these behaviors (through school records).
Disruptive behavior reflects behaviors that disrupt or disturb academic or social activities, creating troubled learning conditions for students. Children who display heightened levels of disruptive behavior at school perform less well academically,20 have impaired social relations,21 and are at heightened risk for antisocial outcomes.22 Children’s disruptive behavior also negatively impacts the performance of teachers and students in the classroom.
School disciplinary actions can include office disciplinary referrals (ODRs) and formal disciplinary actions, ranging from written reprimands to law enforcement referrals. Exclusionary discipline (i.e., removing students from class or school) includes in- and out-of-school suspension, temporary placement in an alternative educational setting, and expulsion from school, and can have particularly significant consequences for youth.23
Students who are suspended from school have lower course completion rates and standardized test scores, are more likely to repeat a grade, and less likely to graduate from high school or go to college.24,25,26,27 These deleterious effects can occur not just when students are removed from school but also from in-school suspension (ISS). A study of high school students found that ISS was negatively associated with students’ grade point averages and high school completion.28 Students who are suspended or expelled are also more likely to come in contact with the criminal justice system and to be arrested.27,29,30 The effects of school suspension are cumulative; the more times a student is suspended, the lower their odds of school completion and postsecondary enrollment and the higher their odds of arrest.29,31
Due to the significant negative effects of punitive disciplinary actions, many schools are moving away from zero-tolerance policies in favor of less severe measures like peer mediation or positive behavioral reinforcement, especially for minor infractions.32,33
Mentoring programs have been shown to have a positive impact both on student behavior and on disciplinary referrals. One study found that Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring was effective in decreasing fighting at school, as well as principal’s office visits and suspensions.34 Evaluations of two middle-school mentoring programs also found a significant reduction in disciplinary referrals, in- and out-of-school suspensions, and the number of serious infractions committed on school property for mentored youth compared to their non-mentored peers.35,36
Substance Use
Substance use by adolescents is a national concern.37 By the time they are seniors, just over 60 percent of high school students will have tried alcohol, nearly half will have taken an illegal drug, over a quarter will have smoked a cigarette, and 18 percent will have used a prescription drug for a nonmedical purpose.38 The desire for new experiences, an attempt to deal with problems or perform better in school, and simple peer pressure have been offered as some of the reasons adolescents begin to experiment with substance use.39 Mentors can provide a safe context for discussions and disclosures related to substance use and simultaneously transmit prosocial values, advice, and perspectives about the dangers of substance use.40,41 Dunn and colleagues conducted a review of 15 studies on mentoring and substance use in adolescents.37 Findings were inconsistent across the reviewed studies (only 6 of the 15 showed effects of mentoring on substance use). However, the authors concluded that higher-quality mentoring programs (e.g., providing mentor training and support) and more exposure to mentoring (i.e., mentoring relationships lasting more than one year) were linked with stronger effects in this area. Similarly, two systematic reviews conducted by Thomas and colleagues42,43 found evidence for favorable effects of mentoring on substance use (as did a meta-analysis by Tolan and colleagues1), but, again, findings were inconsistent across studies and were stronger for alcohol use than for other drug or tobacco use. Among several issues in need of clarification in this area is the question of whether mentoring works equally well in preventing the onset of substance use or in curbing existing use.
Opioid Misuse
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis (i.e., the misuse of, addiction to, and deaths related to opioids) a public health emergency.44 This crisis involves significant numbers of youth. In a 2016 national survey, 3.6 percent of 12- to 17-year-old youth reported misusing opioids (i.e., using opioids without a doctor’s prescription or differently than how a doctor prescribed them) over the past year.45 In 2015 alone, 4,235 youth and young adults ages 15 to 24 died from a drug-related overdose; over half of these were attributable to opioids.46 Nonmedical prescription opioid use in adolescence is also linked with several negative outcomes later in life such as substance use disorder symptoms47 and the transition to heroin use.48 In adults, opioid misuse is also predictive of both mood and anxiety disorders.49
The misuse of prescription opioids has only recently become a large-scale public concern. Thus, the field has few examples of scales used to measure it in adolescents, and differences in how these scales are framed and administered to youth (e.g., in their definitions of misuse, use of the term “opioids,” inclusion of specific types of opioids or pictures of sample pills) make interpretation and comparisons of findings and trends across studies difficult (see Voon & Kerr50; Palamar et al,51). To date, there is also very little published information on youth mentoring programs specifically targeting opioid misuse or the potential for mentoring relationships to reduce risk for opioid misuse among young persons. Yet, there is much potential for these types of programs, as well as those supporting mentoring opportunities for youth more generally, to contribute to approaches for tackling this problem.52
School Absenteeism and Truancy
Students miss school for many reasons. While occasionally missing class for a valid reason (e.g., illness, dentist appointment, etc.) is not typically considered a “problem behavior,” reasons for absenteeism are not always clear. Moreover, missing school—whether excused or unexcused—is negatively associated with student academic outcomes. The effects of absences begin as early as prekindergarten, and can establish a trajectory of missed school, reduced academic achievement, and slower school progression in later childhood and adolescence.53,54,55 Absenteeism is associated with lower standardized test scores, school dropout, and decreased rates of high school graduation and enrollment in postsecondary education.56 Students with attendance problems exhibit lower school efficacy, more depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem than those with regular attendance.57
The negative effects of absenteeism are particularly acute for students who are chronically absent and those who are truant. The U.S. Department of Education defines chronic absenteeism as missing more than 10% of the school year (18 days in a 180-day school year).58 Although truancy is generally considered to be any unexcused or unverified absence from school, the number of unexcused absences that a student can accrue before they are legally considered truant varies by state and school district.59 Unexcused absenteeism—whether or not it meets this legal threshold—is a strong predictor of academic failure, school dropout, substance use, and criminal activity.59,60
In some states, students who are habitually truant can be suspended or expelled from school,61 further reducing learning opportunities and increasing the likelihood of negative outcomes. Additionally, because truancy is considered a status offense in most states (i.e., a noncriminal act that is a law violation only because of a youth’s status as a minor), students who are truant may face additional legal consequences and juvenile justice system involvement.59 Thus, the link between truancy and negative outcomes is complex—truancy itself may not necessarily cause delinquent behavior, but may lead to other processes that increase the likelihood of these outcomes. For example, being involved in a court appearance during high school is associated with increased likelihood that a youth will drop out of school, independent of their involvement in delinquency.62 In addition, delinquent youth are more likely to be arrested at times when they are kept out of school through suspensions, expulsions or truancy.63 Such contact with the juvenile justice system may increase youth’s risk of moving deeper into the system and, in turn, increase their risk for future delinquency.64,65 These links have led to calls for rethinking current labeling of, and response to, truancy, in favor of more preventive approaches.65
Studies suggest that mentoring programs may be an effective strategy to reduce absenteeism and truancy, although the effect varies depending on program design and student characteristics, such as risk and grade level.66,67,68 For example, mentoring effects may be especially strong in school-based programs, where school attendance may be particularly salient for the relationship. In fact, in a systematic review of three large-scale, rigorous evaluations of school-based mentoring programs, a decrease in unexcused absences was the outcome with the largest estimated effect across all of the outcomes tested.69 There is also some evidence suggesting the potential for community-based mentoring programs to decrease absenteeism and truancy.70
Programs interested in assessing student absences and truancy can survey mentees about the number of times they missed school in a specific period or they can collect official records of absenteeism. Official records include student report cards, which can be collected directly from students or parents, and school administrative data, which can be requested from schools or school districts once appropriate data sharing agreements are developed (more information on data sharing can be found here). Surveying mentees about absenteeism is often easier and less resource intensive for mentoring programs, as many programs routinely administer surveys to program participants (see the Recent and Lifetime Truancy Scale for a suggested measure on self-reported unexcused absences/truancy). However, research has shown that self-reports of school absences differ from school records in important ways. Students tend to under-report the number of days missed and under-reporting may be greatest among students with frequent unexcused absences, perhaps in part due to the negative consequences that often result from truancy.71,72 Moreover, because ethnic and racial minorities often face greater penalties for truancy (i.e., greater likelihood of suspension or expulsion), such students may be more hesitant to self-report truant behavior.57
Administrative data also have shortcomings, especially when trying to distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. For example, school data may overestimate the number of unexcused absences among particular groups (e.g., students without health insurance are often unable to get a doctor’s note to document illness). Students may also routinely miss specific class periods without being counted as absent for the day.57 (See School Attendance Records for more considerations when collecting administrative data.) Still, many funders and other stakeholders are interested in official records to support program impact. Programs should think carefully about these tradeoffs when considering absenteeism and truancy as potential outcome measures.
Social-Emotional Skills
Social-emotional (SE) skills include the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for youth to recognize and control their emotions and behaviors; establish and maintain positive relationships; make responsible decisions and solve challenging situations; and set and achieve positive goals.1,2 Sometimes labeled as 21st century skills,3 soft skills,4 non-cognitive skills,5 or character attributes,6 SE skills have been shown to be malleable and linked to academic, career, and life success.7 Based on this evidence, promoting these skills in young people has become a priority for both schools and afterschool settings.
Rhodes’ model of youth mentoring8 points to an important role for mentors in promoting SE skills. Mentoring relationships that are emotionally engaging (e.g., through trust, empathy, mutuality) are expected to produce social and emotional growth in young people that will improve their relationships with peers, parents, and other adults as well as their overall well-being and success in life. Indeed, meta-analyses have linked quality mentoring programs9,10 as well as quality afterschool programs11 to improvements in social and emotional development. These impacts extend across program types and across youth background and demographic characteristics. For example, cross-age peer mentoring programs have been indicated to contribute to improvements in mentees’ communication skills and social adjustment.12 In addition, youth with learning and behavioral difficulties have also shown social gains in areas of self-control and cooperation after engaging with a mentor.13 However, it is important to note that these effects are often small in magnitude and have not been consistent across all outcome measures relevant to SE skills or across all programs.
In deciding what SE skills from the broad array to include in this Toolkit, priority was given to those skills that have most consistently been linked to short- and long-term success in multiple domains such as mental health, behavior, and academics. Emphasis was also given to SE skills that, based on available evidence, seem most likely to be malleable to mentoring. It is important to note here that one should use caution with only collecting youth self-report data to assess SE skills. As self-awareness is also a key facet of SE skills, youth with poor self-awareness may not accurately report their other SE skills. In assessing SE skills as outcomes, it thus may be especially valuable to gather data from additional informants, such as mentors, parents, or teachers, as well as through objective assessments such as observations of behavior.
Measures Within This Domain:
Self-Control
Self-control refers to one’s ability to regulate one’s emotions and behaviors.14 It may involve delaying gratification, controlling impulses, focusing attention, and following rules. Self-control is seen as foundational to the other SE skills. For example, successfully maintaining positive peer relationships or working constructively with others often requires the ability to control one’s emotions and act in socially appropriate ways. The ability to control one’s emotions and behaviors has been linked to success in all domains of life including educational, social, and vocational contexts. For example, seminal research by Mischel and colleagues has suggested that there are long-term effects of self-control on positive outcomes later in life; preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification was linked to academic, behavioral, and social success in adolescence as well as higher SAT scores, college completion rates, and income levels.15 Following a cohort of 1,000 children from birth to the age of 32, Moffitt and colleagues16 also linked childhood self-control in favorable directions to several developmental outcomes including physical health, personal finances, substance use, and criminal behavior. Surprisingly little research has directly investigated the effects of youth mentoring on self-control abilities. In a notable exception, an evaluation of Across Ages, an intergenerational mentoring program, found that program participants exhibited greater improvements in their self-reported self-control abilities.
However, these effects were not maintained following the end of program involvement.17 Another exception to the dearth of work examining the link between mentoring and self-control is a longitudinal study by Kogan and colleagues.18 Using data from a sample of rural African American youth, they found that positive natural mentoring relationships predicted greater self-control in these youth as rated by their parents, which in turn, was linked to less anger, rule-breaking behavior, and aggression.18
Social Competence
Social competence is the set of abilities needed to be assertive and to create and maintain positive relationships.19 These skills are necessary to get along well with others and to work constructively with others within established social norms across multiple contexts. For example, a consistent and robust body of research indicates that social competence predicts career success in terms of employment, workplace performance, income, and entrepreneurial success.4 Mentors can serve as a key resource for promoting social competence. Rhodes’ model of mentoring8 described this process and empirical evidence supports this idea. DuBois and colleagues’ meta-analysis of 55 evaluations of youth mentoring programs9 suggested that, on average, participation in mentoring programs significantly improved the social competence of youth. In the landmark Public/Private Ventures evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program,20 for example, findings indicated that mentored youth improved in their relationships with peers and parents as compared to non-mentored youth.
Problem-Solving Ability
Problem-solving ability involves the capacity to identify a problem, collect information from multiple sources to consider options, and select a reasonable solution to that problem. Effective problem-solving has been conceptualized as involving “planning, flexibility, and resourcefulness.”21 Resilient children and adolescents growing up in adverse environments are often found to have strong problem-solving abilities.22,23 Theoretically, mentors can serve as role models for positive problem-solving by modeling a calm, thoughtful, and flexible approach to dealing with problems. In addition, mentors can serve as resources for advice to young people as they work through problems, such as in their relationships with family members, peers, and teachers. However, there has been very little empirical evidence examining the role of mentoring in affecting problem-solving ability (or similar higher-order thinking constructs such as decision making and critical thinking).
Skills for Setting and Pursuing Goals
The ability to set appropriate goals and effectively pursue them is widely understood to be central to healthy development.24,25 In line with this view, results from the Lerner and Lerner 4-H Study of PYD26 have consistently linked goal-directed skills to positive youth development outcomes. Helping youth to develop goal-setting and goal-pursuit skills is a key aim in the organization and structuring of many mentoring programs.27 Mentors may prove helpful in building these skills in youth through several ways.28 Mentors serve as teachers, role models, and advocates for youth as they provide opportunities for youth to practice these skills, examples of success and failure in pursuing goals, and access to social networks that align with youth goals. Only limited research has addressed these possibilities. In one recent study using data from 415 mentor-mentee dyads from mentoring programs around the United States, Bowers and colleagues29 found that mentor-mentee relationship quality predicted growth in youth goal-directed skills. In another recent study involving Big Brothers Big Sisters community-based mentoring programs,30 youth who were randomly assigned to receive support with development of skills for goal-setting and pursuit (along with other facets of thriving) did not show any greater improvement in this area than youth assigned to receive mentoring as usual. However, for a subgroup of these youth who reported having positive exposure to the activities that were designed to build goal-directed skills, it appears that they were indeed beneficial for promoting thriving and, in turn, reduced problem behavior. Further research will be needed to better clarify the conditions under which mentoring is most likely to help youth cultivate skills for setting and working toward goals effectively.
Perseverance
Perseverance refers to the ability to pursue one’s tasks to completion. It has attracted considerable interest from practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers, particularly in relation to its potential role in facilitating academic and career success. Youth self-reports of greater perseverance have been positively linked to measures of their GPA, healthy habits, and (as rated by teachers) academic performance, cooperation, effort, and organization, and has been negatively linked to youth depression, anxiety, and aggression. 31 A systematic review of program and learning models suggests that perseverance can be taught and developed.32
Most studies on the role of adults in promoting youth perseverance have been conducted in school settings. Reviews of this work indicate that youth are more likely to persist when they view adults as showing they care about them, having high expectations for their success, and holding them to high standards.33 In an evaluation of five after-school centers from the San Francisco Beacon Initiative,34 young people who participated in the Beacon centers for a year or more were 33 percent less likely to show a decline in self-reported perseverance (identified as “self-efficacy” in the study) over an 18-month period than youth who either did not participate in the Beacon center programming or who participated for less time. Increased participation in Beacon centers was also linked to increased levels of non-family adult support, which, in turn, significantly predicted positive changes in perseverance. A quasi-experimental evaluation of OneGoal, a college preparation program with the goal of college graduation and emphasis on social support, found that youth in the OneGoal program had higher rates of college enrollment and retention than comparison-group youth, and that growth in the SE skills of persistence and self-control was linked to college enrollment and retention for OneGoal participants.35
A construct related to perseverance is grit36–one’s sustained interest in and perseverance of efforts over years toward a long-term goal. A meta-analysis of findings from 88 independent study samples indicated that the perseverance of effort dimension of grit was much more strongly related to measures of academic performance than the consistency of interest dimension or overall grit scores,37 providing additional evidence for an important contribution of perseverance to youth success. It should be noted, however, that the potential for mentoring programs to promote perseverance has not been rigorously investigated.
Self-Advocacy
Self-advocacy is the ability to communicate one’s needs and engage in actions that mobilize the identified supports required to achieve those needs.38 Central building blocks of self-advocacy are knowledge of self (i.e., an understanding of one’s own strengths and growing points), knowledge of one’s rights and the steps needed to advocate for change, the ability to communicate with others and locate needed resources, and the capacity to exhibit relevant leadership skills such as working with and motivating others.39 The development of self-advocacy skills is correlated with improvement in academic performance, stronger social-emotional support systems, and greater access to health care services.40,41,42
Mentors may help their mentees acquire and strengthen their self-advocacy skills through several routes, for example, by discussing strategies youth could use to further their goals or providing role modeling these behaviors for youth (e.g., connecting their mentees to information or people who could help them43). Help-seeking behavior is one aspect of self-advocacy entailing the capacity to seek out needed resources and supports.44 This skill is important in healthy development, as it can foster resilience and coping. High-quality mentoring relationships have been significantly tied to improvements in youths’ help-seeking behavior.43
Career Exploration
During adolescence, a youth’s sense of personal future develops, and identity exploration and commitment become important developmental tasks.38 Educational and career achievements are a typical focus of adolescent thoughts of the future.39 How youth approach career exploration has been linked to variation in indicators of positive youth development40 including school engagement41 and academic success.42 Career and academic processes, in turn, have been linked to youth perseverance and success in the subsequent school-to-work transition.43
Theoretically, mentoring relationships can help place young people on a path to career success. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)44 posits that career development is a lifelong process that can be facilitated in childhood and adolescence through career exploration and support, modeling, resources, and feedback from others including mentors, teachers, and counselors. For example, support from parents, close friends, and non-parental adults such as extended family members and teachers has been linked to career development in urban youth,45 and natural mentoring relationships have been linked to reported use of planful strategies to pursue long-term career goals among rural African American youth and emerging adults46 as well as indices of the career development of pregnant and parenting African-American teenagers.47 Natural mentoring relationships in adolescence have also been associated positively with work hours per week in the early twenties48,49 and with intrinsic job rewards (creativity, authority, and autonomy) in the early thirties.50 Analyses based on the same nationally representative sample further found that the reported presence of a natural mentor was linked to greater annual earnings during adulthood for males without fathers and especially so for African-American males without fathers.51 Similar possible benefits for annual earnings for young men, especially those at risk for high school dropout, were identified in an evaluation of the Career Academy mentoring program.52, 53 Males enrolled in the Career Academy earned more than those in the non-Academy control group over the 4- and 8-year follow-up periods via increased wages, hours worked, and employment stability. A recent evaluation of the iMentor program also found evidence of an effect of program participation on career planning.54 Evidence regarding the ability of programs geared toward younger youth and without a specific focus on career development to promote career exploration, however, is lacking.
Youth-Centered Outcomes
As previously indicated, helping youth set and pursue their goals is a central task in many mentoring programs.27 However, with youth setting goals in diverse domains, programs may find it difficult to assess youth progress toward achieving these goals. Measures of universal outcomes provide programs with a way to track youth progress toward their individualized goals using a standardized questionnaire format.55 Reviews suggest that these types of outcome measures – often referred to as idiographic in the research literature and which are referred to here as youth-centered – have the potential to capture change better than standardized measures often used in practice.56 For example, in a sample of 137 youth receiving mental health services, Edbrooke-Childs and colleagues reported that changes in progress toward goals was linked to changes in clinician- reported functioning and parent-reported satisfaction with care.57 The processes of setting and monitoring progress towards goals, which is encouraged for youth to do collaboratively with relevant adults such as therapists or, the case of mentoring programs, program staff and mentors,58,59 has itself been linked to a range of behavioral outcomes60,61 and psychological well-being and distress.62 In clinical research, for example, both practitioners and youth have reported that the process of reviewing and tracking goals motivated youth, empowered them to take ownership of their progress, and improved communication between the practitioner and youth and parents.63 Similarly, in a study of 176 mentors trained to use Goal Attainment Scaling, a youth-centered outcomes measure, Balcazar and colleagues found that that this process provided mentors with a helpful framework for working with youth, including clear direction for how to focus their support.64 However, it is important to note that ratings on youth-centered outcomes are subjective and may be subject to social desirability bias (i.e., a motivational tendency or investment on the part of raters, such as youth or mentors, to report positive progress).55 Several strategies may be helpful for mitigating the risk of bias in youth-centered outcomes. These include 1) developing a system and structure in which goals are discussed and reviewed in a consistent manner; 2) collection of goal progress data from multiple sources; and 3) encouraging mentors and others involved with gauging goal progress (e.g., staff) to temper unrealistic expectations of goal attainment and to consider how youth may be affected in the long run if assessments of progress are biased to be more favorable than is warranted.55 To summarize, the use of youth-centered measures has been uncommon to date in the mentoring literature and carries with it a number of important considerations. At the same time, these tools hold significant promise for enhancing sensitivity to detecting changes in meaningful outcomes among youth receiving mentoring as well as for enhancing beneficial processes in the mentoring relationship itself.
Cited Literature