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Theories & Approaches

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	Adolescent Development BDI Logic Model Chlamydia: Starting a School-Based Chlamydia Screening Treatment Program End Notes Health Belief Model (HBM) International Girls Development Male Involvement and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Peer Education in Teen Pregnancy Prevention Peer Education Resources Program Evaluation Basics Resources for More Information on the Health Belief Model Service Learning Sexual Risk and Protective Factors Social Learning Theory Stages of Change Model Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) Tool to Assess the Characteristics of Effective Sex and STD/HIV Education Programs Using Research to Improve Practice Youth Development and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Youth Mentoring

Youth Mentoring

by Mark Fulop

Welcome to Youth Mentoring! In this section, you will find the following:

• An Introduction
• Designing a Mentoring Program: Four Dimensions
• What We Know about Youth Mentoring
• Mentoring and Pregnancy Prevention
• Implications for Practice

• Two Case Studies
  
  • StartRight/Teen MOMs Program
  • StartRight/Teen MOMs Program Expansion
• Getting Started
• Foundations of a Successful Youth Mentoring Program: a checklist
• A Summary
• Resources, and
• References

Introduction

Youth mentoring popularly claims mythical origins in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus asks his friend Mentor to look after his son Telemachus while he goes off to fight the Trojan War (Freedman, 1993). While there is some debate about whether or not the relationship between Mentor and Telemachus meets mentoring criteria, the inclination to date the concept of mentoring to 800 BC suggests that the mentoring relationship has long been part of our history.

Historically, older generations have passed on wisdom to younger generations through oral histories, stories, ceremonies, rituals and apprenticeships. However, within the fragmented and fractured societies that exist in some of today's western nations, inter-generational connection and social bonds have weakened, and the organic drive to protect and nurture future generations has incrementally been losing its influence.

As a result, the efforts to connect youth with caring adults is increasingly institutionalized in a wide array of youth programs and interventions that comprise a relatively new discipline known as "youth development." Mentoring through structured and formal relationships is one youth development program strategy and is the focus on this month's ReCAPP edition.

Mentoring as a structured and formal intervention began to take form at the turn of the 20th century as urbanization and industrialization began to take hold in the United States. As a youth development strategy, formal youth mentoring has been steadily increasing since the 1980s, propelled in part by the growth of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America as well as the development of MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership (NMP) as an advocacy organization (Rhodes, 2002).

As the field of mentoring develops and expands its reach, the strategy grabs the attention of more and more youth development agencies that are beginning to explore its potential. To help guide agencies working in the area of pregnancy prevention, ReCAPP explores mentoring in this edition with three primary goals in mind:

1. To overview what we know about youth mentoring in the context of pregnancy prevention;
2. To illustrate the practice of youth mentoring as a pregnancy prevention strategy through two case studies; and
3. To provide resources in the form of a basic mentoring foundations checklist, as well as additional references to professional literature, books and websites.

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